The Architects & the Forgotten Grapes

The story of Partida Creus begins in Piedmont, Italy, where Antonella Gerosa and Massimo Marchiori were born and raised. Both were trained as architects, designers, and marketers — skilled in the precision of lines and the logic of structure, but increasingly weary of the urban treadmill. In 1994–95, they left their native Lombardy and moved to Barcelona for work, immersing themselves in the creative energy of the Catalan capital. But after several years of what Massimo calls "the big city rat race," they yearned for something slower, something rooted in soil rather than concrete. They wanted to live in harmony with the land.

In 2001, they found their escape: a remote property in the village of Bonastre, in the Baix Penedès region of southern Catalonia, about an hour's drive south of Barcelona. The area was rural, forgotten, and breathtakingly beautiful — a landscape of calcareous hills and Mediterranean scrub. They purchased and refurbished an abandoned cottage and began to grow their own food, eventually becoming members of Slow Food International. But there was a problem: they could not find any local wines that suited their tastes or values. The Penedès around them had been transformed by industrial viticulture — international varieties, chemical farming, and homogenised flavours. The local wines tasted of nowhere.

So they began to explore. They discovered old, abandoned vineyards overgrown with indigenous grape varieties that had long been forgotten — or deliberately uprooted. During the Franco era, the government had paid farmers to remove vines and plant olive and almond trees instead. The remaining varieties — Sumoll, Cartoixa Vermell, Vinyater, Garrut — were considered obsolete, low-yielding, and commercially worthless. Their neighbours thought they were crazy to not tear them up in favour of more mainstream, profitable grapes like Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. But for Antonella and Massimo, this was the perfect context. They began to purchase and recuperate parcels around Bonastre, applying organic and biodynamic principles to revive the vines. Their first harvest came in 2007.

The name Partida Creus refers to the ancient stone crosses that marked the boundary lines between vineyard parcels — the partidas — a symbol of the deep agricultural history of the region. From the beginning, the project was defined by a refusal to conform. They were Italian outsiders in a Catalan wine world, architects without oenological training, choosing the grapes that everyone else had discarded. Yet their instinct was unerring: they understood that authenticity and purity are the only elements that distinguish a great wine. Today, Partida Creus is synonymous with the natural wine movement in Spain and beyond — a benchmark for minimal intervention, indigenous varieties, and the radical act of preserving what others destroy.

The guiding philosophy of Partida Creus is expressed in three words: authenticity, purity, and observation. Antonella and Massimo are committed to winemaking that expresses each indigenous variety distinctly — not through heavy extraction, new oak, or technological manipulation, but through patient observation, indigenous yeasts, and the gentlest possible handling. Their approach is deliberately minimal: short macerations, foot-treading, spontaneous fermentation, and ageing in stainless steel or neutral barrels. The result is a portfolio that is typified by fresh acidity, direct fruit, and lower alcohol — wines that are quaffable, refreshing, and perfect for a sunny day, yet profound in their clarity and honesty. As they believe, wine is nothing more than fermented grape juice — deeply connected to the land, natural, and true to its origins.

The methodology is deliberately simple and fundamentally non-invasive. All grapes are hand-harvested early in the morning to preserve freshness. For the VN Vinel·lo cuvées — the baseline white and red — grapes are partially destemmed, given a short skin maceration of 1 to 3 days, and fermented with indigenous yeasts in stainless steel tanks, where they rest on fine lees until bottling the following spring or summer. For the single-varietal wines, the approach varies by grape: Cartoixa Vermell sees 120 days of maceration; Subirat Parent is pressed directly and aged under a veil of flor in 300L French oak barrels for one year; Trepat is macerated for 7 days, then fermented and aged in 54L glass demijohns for a year before racking to 300L French oak; Garnatxa Negra is aged in 300L chestnut barrels; Xarel·lo Ancestral is bottled under crown cap for natural carbonation. Since 2021, all single-varietal cuvées see élevage in oak or acacia barrels.

The special cuvées are made with the same care and zero intervention. The MUZ Vermouth is a world apart: a blend of base wines (joven red, crianza red, and oxidized white) fortified with a distilled herbal liquor macerated with 51 botanicals from a secret recipe of a Torino herbalist whose grandfather, Mr. Carpano, prepared the original formula in 1870. The Brutal cuvée is a field blend of Vinyater, Subirat Parent, Xarel·lo, Cartoixa Vermell, and Sumoll, each macerated separately then blended. The Clarete is a co-fermentation of two-thirds Garnatxa Blanca and one-third Garnatxa Negra from Terra Alta, macerated and fermented together over winter in a 10,000L tank. The Bobal comes from abandoned bush vines in Narboneta, Cuenca — over 400 kilometres from Bonastre — where Massimo travels each harvest to pick in the cool morning and rush the grapes back to the cellar. Each wine is bottled without fining or filtration, and with zero added sulfur since 2013.

The cellar is not a technological facility; it is a modest, working space — where stainless steel tanks sit alongside 300L French oak barrels, chestnut casks, and 54L glass demijohns, where Antonella and Massimo do the work by hand and by observation. There is no consultant recommending corrective enzymes, no recipe that overrides the vintage, no pressure to produce industrial wines or heavy, extracted blockbusters. There is only the couple, the ancient varieties, the calcareous soils, and the patience to let each grape take the time it needs. The result is a portfolio of wines that are honest, precise, and alive — wines that have earned a place on the wine lists of the world's most discerning restaurants. As one writer noted, Partida Creus is an act of resistance against the homogenisation of wine — and that resistance tastes like Mediterranean clarity.

To understand Partida Creus, one must understand that it is not merely a winery; it is an act of resistance — against the homogenisation of wine, against the uprooting of indigenous varieties, against the bureaucracy that certifies authenticity while eroding it. The identity of the project is defined by the two-letter labels — BN, VN, XL, CX, GT, SP, TP, SO, GN, TN, CL, MC, SK, SM, AA, MUZ — a coded alphabet that has become iconic in the natural wine world, each pair a shorthand for a grape, a method, and a place. The identity is also defined by the forgotten varieties — the Sumoll that was disqualified from DO for lack of colour, the Cartoixa Vermell that was never accepted, the Subirat Parent that was near extinction — varieties that Antonella and Massimo have transformed from obsolete to essential. The estate is not a monoculture; it is a living museum. The result is a portfolio of wines that are not merely products but expressions of a rescued culture — each bottle a testament to the conviction that wine should be honest, biodiverse, and deeply respectful of the land that produced it.

The identity is also defined by the withdrawal from certification — the 2017 decision to abandon organic and biodynamic certifications because the regulatory agency had become more focused on paperwork than on effective control of agricultural practices. This was not a rejection of organic principles but a deepening of them: Antonella and Massimo understood that their commitment to natural methods and transparency was stronger than any stamp on a label. They make all wine analyses available to those who seek them. They host visitors with beaming smiles and warm embraces, sharing leeks charred over open fire and dipped in romesco, turning afternoons into celebrations of rural simplicity. They are, in essence, the guardians of a viticultural heritage that the modern wine world had discarded, using tradition as a tool for innovation.

The identity is also defined by refusal — the refusal to use chemicals, the refusal to add sulfur, the refusal to fine or filter, the refusal to chase high alcohol or heavy extraction, the refusal to plant international varieties, and the refusal to treat wine as a commodity rather than a cultural and agricultural product. Antonella and Massimo have kept their range playful and precise, resisting the pressure to standardise or expand predictably. They have moved from conventional architectural careers to a life of donkeys and ancient vines. But they have never abandoned the traditions that make Baix Penedès what it is: the Xarel·lo, the Macabeu, the Sumoll, the Trepat, and the ancestral method of sparkling wine. The wines reflect this intentionality: they are not radical, not rustic, not naive. They are precise, traditional, and deeply considered — the product of an architectural eye for structure and a farmer's love of Mediterranean clarity converging on 6 hectares of calcareous clay.

The future of Partida Creus is tied to the continued health of their 22 hectares (6 planted), the maturation of their newer plantings (Trepat planted in 2016, Garnatxa Negra in 2014), and the gradual deepening of their relationships with local farmers who still hold abandoned parcels of indigenous varieties. Antonella and Massimo are eager to continue — to explore new expressions of the Baix Penedès terroir, to deepen their understanding of the mosaic of clay, limestone, and gypsum, and to obtain ever more precise, elegant, and terroir-driven expressions from the fruit of their own rescued vines. The BN will continue to be the hazy amber ambassador, the XL the ancestral sparkler, and the CX the 120-day masterpiece. They do not chase trends; they chase the truth of their land, and they have the patience to let that truth speak in its own voice — a voice that is Baix Penedès-born, Mediterranean-cooled, Italian-guided, and unmistakably Partida Creus.

In an age of increasing industrialisation in wine — of global varieties, engineered yeasts, and corporate consolidation — Partida Creus stands as a compelling alternative, not because it rejects modernity but because it has embraced a deeper modernity: one that values organic farming over chemical convenience, biodynamic practice over synthetic inputs, animal traction over mechanical efficiency, indigenous varieties over international clones, indigenous yeasts over inoculation, short macerations over heavy extraction, neutral vessels over new oak intrusion, zero sulfur over heavy dosing, forgotten grapes over fashionable varieties, and the specific voice of Baix Penedès' calcareous soils over the standardised replication of a global style. Antonella Gerosa and Massimo Marchiori are not merely making wine; they are proving that two Italian architects can become the voice of Catalan viticulture, that 6 hectares of clay and limestone can produce wines of international recognition, that a two-letter label can possess the most profound identity, and that the simplest philosophy — Partida Creus is not just a winery; it's a way of understanding wine as a link between nature and those who enjoy it — is often the most profound. From the first vintage in 2007 to the wines of today: all united in one resistance, one synthesis, one unanswerable argument for the possibility of authentic, organic, hand-made, passionately honest wine from the calcareous heart of Catalonia.