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That Useful Wine Site

  Wine explained, clearly and helpfully, including critic-recommended specimens of each variety.

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Welcome to That Useful Wine Site!

You have apparently come to this page from a link on a search engine or another site. If this is your first visit here, I much recommend that you take a few minutes to look over the introductory material accessible via the blue “Introductory” zone of the Site Menu available from the “hamburger” icon in the upper right of this (and every) page. An understanding of the purposes and principles of organization of this site will, I hope and believe, much augment your experience here, for this page and in general. You can simply click this link to get at the site front page, which, unsurprisingly, is the best place to start. Thank you for visiting.

The Macabeo Grape


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About Macabeo

(Synonyms: Charas Blanc, Lardot, Macabeu, Maccabéo, Maccabeu, Viura.)

Background

Map showing Vilafranca del Penedes in Spain.

Macabeo is an old white-wine grape most likely originating in the Vilafranca del Penedès region of Catalunya in Spain. It is almost equally common to find it called “Viura” as “Macabeo”; we here follow Jancis Robinson in her encyclopedic book Wine Grapes in referring to it as Macabeo. Quite often, the wines will be founbd labelled simply “White Rioja” (or the Spanish equivalent “Rioja Blanco”), but recent changes in Spanish wine laws now allow white Riojas to contain as little as 51% Viura (as it is called there), so if looking at such a bottle, take care to read the back label.

Today, Macabeo is grown and vinified on both sides of the Pyrenees Mountains: in northern Spain and in southern France. The French production is much smaller than the Spanish (which is mostly the Rioja region), but the wines from there (the Roussillon region) are quite well-made.

Stylistically, Macabeo is all over the map. The modern tendency is toward stainless-steel fermentation tanks, producing crisp, fresh floral wines; but there is also a significant amount made in an older fashion, using later-harvested grapes and a deal of oak-barrel aging to produce big nutty/honied wines. It is probably well worth becoming acquainted with both styles.

Factoid: Macabeo is an important ingredient in the famed Cava sparkling wines of Spain.

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Some Descriptions of Macabeo Wines

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Some Macabeo+Viura Bottlings to Try

(About this list.)

Regrettably, there are no Macabeo+Viura bottlings that meet our quality/price/availability criteria. Sorry.

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This page was last modified on Sunday, 8 December 2024, at 9:46 pm Pacific Time.