Sumoll: Catalonia's Reclaimed Light Red

Sumoll is pronounced soo-MOY.

Catalonia decided Sumoll wasn't worth the land it grew on, and spent decades ripping it out. The growers who ignored that verdict now make one of Spain's best light reds — pale, high-acid, and closer to a village Burgundy than anything you'd expect from a warm Mediterranean hillside.

If you drink Pinot Noir for its lift rather than its price tag, this is the bottle to chase.

What it tastes like

Pour it and the first surprise is the color. Sumoll is pale — translucent ruby, not the inky purple you brace for from Spain. The nose is tart red cherry and red currant, edged with wild herbs and something stony underneath, like wet gravel after rain.

On the palate it's light and taut. Acidity is the engine here; tannin sits low and fine, so the wine feels more like a cool-climate red than a sun-baked one. The fruit is bright rather than sweet, the finish clean and a little savory. Serve it with a slight chill and it sharpens further.

This is not a wine that flatters you with richness. It's a wine that wakes you up. If your palate is set for velvet, Sumoll will read as austere. If you like tension in a glass, it delivers.

Why Catalonia nearly lost it

Before phylloxera, Sumoll grew all over Catalonia. It was a workhorse — planted for volume, blended into everyday reds, valued for surviving drought when little else would. That reputation became its problem.

When Spain joined the EU in 1986, the region pivoted toward international varieties and easier grapes. Sumoll ripens late, yields little, and takes work in the cellar. Growers pulled it in favor of vines that paid better. Plantings collapsed, and the grape slid toward the edge of extinction.

What saved it was a small group of producers who saw the same traits differently: the high acid that made it awkward for bulk wine is exactly what makes it compelling now, in a warming climate where freshness is the scarce thing. The grape didn't change. The market finally caught up to it.

Bottles to look for

A few names carry Sumoll today. Can Sumoi, in the high Penedès, built its whole identity around the grape and even spells its name phonetically. Heretat Mont-Rubí was among the first to bottle it as a single variety rather than burying it in a blend. Partida Creus makes a cult natural version simply labelled "SM." Any of these will show you the real thing.

Sumoll is the underdog's underdog — a grape its own region wrote off, kept alive by people who trusted their palates over the spreadsheet. That's worth rooting for. But here's the honest part: it's genuinely hard to buy in the US, the wines run lean rather than lush, and the reference books still argue about the grape, with older databases calling it low in acid and the growers reviving it prizing exactly the opposite. There's no settled critical score to hide behind. You're buying on curiosity, not consensus.

Where to buy

Disclosure: some links here are affiliate links — if you buy through them I may earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you. Learn more

US availability is thin. Sumoll shows up at natural-wine shops and Spanish specialists more than on big retail shelves, so search by producer name and grab it when you see it. Start with a direct search and widen to importers if it comes up empty.

browse Sumoll on Wine.com →

— Chris Berry

If you're switching from a famous grape

If you drink Pinot Noir for its paleness, its acid, and its refusal to be heavy, Sumoll speaks the same language for a lot less money. It won't replicate Burgundy's silk, but it hits the same nerve — a light red built on tension and red fruit rather than power. Treat it the way you'd treat a good Pinot: slight chill, no big steak, let the acidity do the work.

See Wines Like Pinot Noir for the full lineup, or jump straight to Order This Instead.

Part of Lesser-Known Wines: 17 Obscure Grapes Worth Switching To — the full underdog-swap guide.