Frau Cláudia 2023 is a Pétillant Naturel made of Moscatel Graúdo grapes from the Setubal Peninsula. It´s made according to the so-called ancestral method whereby a wine is fermented almost to dry (almost all sugar consumed by yeasts) and then bottled to finish the fermentation inside the bottle. As the bottle is capped, the fermentation gas cannot leave and creates sparkle in the wine. In its pure artisanal form, the wine is not disgorged, and sold and served as a cloudy wine.

We had made our first Pet Nat in 2021, and realized that it takes quite a bit of fine tuning to get the drink right. A common error we – and other beginners – make is to bottle the wine too early. Knowing that about 4 grams of sugar create one bar of pressure, we assumed in our first attempts that we simply wait until about 16 grams of sugar are left in the still fermenting wine, and then bottle. 16 grams of sugar creating 4 bars of pressure – this was what the Germans call our Milchmädchenrechnug. The result was, accordingly, simply put: explosive!

The lab sent us an email with a picture of the aphrometer display (a device to measure pressure), and it was well above 6 bars. Now, as most of us don’t actually know, fine sediments and pressure create foam. We realized we had ignored the fermentation gas naturally dissolved in the wine during the fermentation process, amounting to an equivalent of almost 2 bars. In 2022, much smarter than the previous year, we simply waited until the wine fermented down to a much lower sugar level, 8 grams per liter. It reached this value at 4h30 in the morning, and we started to bottle. We love the cloudy textured aspects of our Pet Nat and therefore kept the wine circulating during the bottling, so that the seidments would not precipitate to the bottom of the tank.

The 2022 Pet Nat, made of Visinho grapes was dramatically delicious, with a pear texture, lime and kiwi notes and a really fresh mouth and finish. Our distributor in the United Kingdom loved it so much as to put it on their listings. The wine was tasted for Jancis Robinson’s website by Julia Harding who explained that this was the cloudiest Pet Nat she had ever seen! She gave it a 17 nonetheless, which is a brilliant score. Raymond, our distributor suggested to call the next edition “Claudia”. And this is how the 2023 edition was born! To play with our multiple German and Portuguese nationalities, and our love for reading the paper on a comfy sofa on a Sunday morning, we added Frau to Cláudia, and Frau Cláuia was born.

In 2023, to bring the wine to a frissante style  with a maximum pressure of 3 bars, we bottled even later and slightly reduced the amount of sediment, so that it is perfectly easy to open the bottle without creating any foam. We feel we have now a really good take on the technique, and the wines are as delicious as they were at the first edition, but way easier to open. A great drink to accompany textured, aromatic food, even spicy food, salads, all types of vegetables steamed, braised or caramelized, white meat, cabbage, carrots.

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