The Macabeu, also called Viura, is a white variety of wine grape native to Catalonia. The bunch is big and compact. The skin of the grape is thin and gold-coloured. Its budding is slow and the harvest period is short, with a premature wine harvest, from mid-August to early September. It resists well the frosts and the droughts, but it’s sensitive to diseases, mainly the Botrytis cinerea.
Wines from Macabeu are greenish yellow coloured. Their aromas are complex and fruity and they remind of grapefruit and apple. They are perfumed, flavourful and fresh, with a moderate acidity and a great mouth feel. They age well in oak.
This vigorous variety of grape is used to produce cava along with Xarel·lo and Parellada.
It’s believed that the name comes from the seven Maccabees brothers, the biblical characters that were martyred with their mother, but the relation with the grape isn’t really clear. It seems that the origin of Macabeu is the basin of the Ebro. Nowadays, it’s grown especially in Penedès, Camp de Tarragona, Plana d’Utiel and Mallorca. It’s also grown in La Rioja, Navarra and California.
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