Tubarão - Pet Nat 2023

Rosé Pet Nat

Gritty, Perfumed, Tingly.

This pet nat is a hella good time. Not only that but it hails from a rather wicked place too.

Before we get into all that though, a quick rundown about pet nat. Pet nat is short for petillant natural or naturally fizzy in french. Also known as the ancestral method, this is where one puts half fermented wine into a bottle and seals it up so that it completes its ferment under pressure thus creating the bubbles. As the wine continues to ferment in the bottle there is often a little sediment that remains in the wines.

TLDR: Old ass recipe for delicious dirty bubbles.

The pet nat from Tubarão is pretty special too. This is a project run by Ricardo Garrido in the town of Póvoa de Varzim in northern Portugal. This area sits right up against the coast with sandy soils stretching kilometres inland. The sand is good and fertile but the wind too strong for normal crop cultivation. To get around this, monks in the 19th century began digging large, football-field-sized pits into the sand so that they could plant their crops in the bottom, sheltering them from the wind. These pits became known as the Campos Masseira. As the monks were also in need of wine, they also grew grape vines up the banks of these pits which are known as valos. 

While the tradition of growing vegetables in the Campos Masseira is still alive, the viticultural side is slowly dying out. For that reason Ricardo has taken it upon himself to preserve and protect this beautiful culture.

He does so with a brilliant selection of wines. His pet nat being the crown jewel.

This wine is made from a blend of, mostly, Loureiro (white) with Vinhão (red) grapes that were pressed off and fermented for a time in steel before being loaded into bottles to complete the ferment.

Killa stuff!