LARURAL - XAVI & ANDREU PADRO
CATALUNYA (SPAIN) - SANTES CREUS
We've just received a very welcome top-up of the 2023 wines from Xavi & Andreu Padró - the brothers behind Larural - producing delicious, invigorating macerations from their indigenous Catalunyan varieties.
In October 2024, we visited Xavi & Andreu in the centre of Santes Creus to see the once-abandoned winemaking co-op that they will soon be moving their production into, just a few doors down from their cellar in the family home. Micro-winemaking in a cathedral for wine!
In a very memorable moment, the brothers and their childhood friend Albert cooked a beautiful pork and mushroom Arros a la Catalana - rice with pork, foraged mushrooms, and homemade aiolli. Perfect fare for the wines: juicy fruit, acidity and salinity playing beautifully with their big, smoky flavours.
A family feast before a visit to their little cellar beneath the family house to taste the nascent 2024 wines, and then later a trek up the hill into the vines to discuss soil health and Catalan indigenous varieties.
In 2018, Xavi & Andreu took over their family's vines 30km from the Mediterranean in the Alt Camp region of Tarragona. Farming organically, with 32 hectares under vine, the brothers only vinify a tiny portion of what they grow, with much of their fruit sold to other winemakers in the region.
They farm an array of indigenous varieties planted over clay-limestone, parcels comprised mostly of single varieties scattered through the hills around Santes Creus, up to 50 years old and between 240 to 420m above sea level: the Meditteranean influence is present!
Photos are from our October 2024 visit.
