Aurelio García and Micaela Rubio, both chemists and oenologists from the province of Cuenca, have expanded their winemaking efforts to include the high-altitude vineyards of the Sierra de Gredos in Ávila, particularly around the village of Navatalgordo. Here, the vineyards are situated at elevations between 1100 and 1300 meters, with granitic soils that vary in decomposition, texture, and orientation. The region’s continental mountain climate, marked by long, snowy winters and cool summers that extend into autumn, offers ideal conditions for cultivating old vines. Many of the vineyards in this area were abandoned following the Spanish Civil War and remained untouched for decades, providing Aurelio and Micaela with the opportunity to work with 80-year-old garnacha tinta vines. Their focus in Gredos is to explore the distinctive characteristics of each site, particularly how soil type and exposure influence the flavor and texture of the wines.
+Altitud is a village wine from Ávila, sourced from 40 plots located between 1100 and 1300 meters, making them some of the highest vineyards on the Iberian Peninsula. The wine is made from 98% garnacha tinta, with 2% white table grapes blended in. Each parcel is vinified separately based on soil type, and the wine is aged for 14 to 15 months in a mix of 60% concrete, 20% silica/clay, and 20% used 500-litre barrels.
+Altitud 2021 (A. García & M. Rubio)
Delicate, almost ethereal wine. Light in both colour and body. Aromas of red berries (raspberry, wild strawberry), complemented by subtle floral notes. It is aromatic, complex, and light on its feet, with a granite-derived texture and a distinctive mineral finish.
Aurelio García is one of the most attentive and thoughtful voices in modern Central Spanish wine. Together with his partner, Micaela Rubio, he works across three regions—Cuenca, Ávila, and Soria—always with a focus on old vineyards, native varieties, and minimal intervention. His wines are precise, expressive, and deeply rooted in place.
When a case from Aurelio García arrived in the post, two bottles had sadly broken in transit. Still, four remained intact—and with those, I took the opportunity to gather my wine club for a focused tasting. We added a few complementary wines for context, but the stars of the evening were clearly Aurelio’s own: La Infanta, +Altitud, Alto de la Cruz, and La Guía. Though we missed out on El Reflejo and Mikaela, the tasting offered a vivid insight into Aurelio’s style across three distinct regions.
Me and Aurelio in the La Infanta parcel, summer of ’23
La Infanta 2021 – Cuenca Cuenca here refers to the Ribera del Júcar zone, though Aurelio prefers not to label his wines under the DO, opting for greater freedom. La Infanta comes from a single parcel in Casas de Benítez and is made from 60% bobal and 40% co-planted local varieties. Delicate and complex, it showed dark berry fruit (dark cherry and plum) on the nose, along with herbal notes, a hint of tar, and a taut, mineral texture. A slightly bitter aftertaste added grip. There was a quiet power to it—restrained, yet full of energy.
+Altitud 2021 – Ávila A village wine from the granite soils of Navatalgordo in the Sierra de Gredos. Light in colour and body, almost ethereal, it offered notes of raspberry, wild strawberry, and flowers, with a fine, lacy texture. This was the most immediately charming wine of the tasting, with several tasters noting its vibrant fruit and finesse.
Alto de la Cruz 2022 – Ávila Also from Navatalgordo, but from a cooler, north-facing valley. Though paler in colour, this wine showed more structure and depth. It opened with herbal tones, redcurrant and floral aromatics, then narrowed into a vertical, mineral finish. There was more volume here, likely from clay soils, with fine-grained tannins and underlying tension.
La Guía 2021 – Soria From Matanza de Soria, a high-altitude village in the eastern part of Ribera del Duero. A blend of tinto fino (tempranillo) and albillo mayor from pre-phylloxera vines, it combined red and dark fruits with floral lift and a subtle hint of nuts. Velvety on the palate, cool and juicy at the core—it struck a fine balance between seriousness and drinkability. For me, this was the most complete wine of the night: subtle, savoury, and quietly profound. Meanwhile, +Altitud stood out for sheer charm and drinkability. While La Infanta and La Guía come in serious bottles with serious price tags, the wines from Gredos are outstanding value for money.
What We Missed
We didn’t get to taste El Reflejo or Mikaela, but here’s what they might have brought to the table:
El Reflejo is Aurelio’s village wine from Cuenca—a blend of bobal and co-planted varieties from around 25 parcels. Fruit-driven and supple, it offers dark and red berries, with freshness and an approachable style.
Mikaela, named after his wife and winemaking partner, is a paraje wine from deeper, pebble-rich soils. Made with whole clusters and aged in foudres, it shows juicy, concentrated fruit with a mineral streak—lively and taut.
Micaela, Celia and Aurelio, summer of ’23
Each wine carried the mark of its place, but all shared a sense of purity, restraint, and precision. Interestingly, my fellow tasters had no difficulty identifying which of the three regions each wine came from—even though the wines were, of course, tasted blind. That in itself is a mark of quality, and a testament to the clarity of Aurelio García’s site expression. Even in the absence of the two missing bottles, the tasting was a clear reminder that Aurelio García is crafting some of Spain’s most thoughtful and terroir-driven wines.
This wine I brought to a dinner to go with a terrine of grouse, a task that it fulfilled with excellence. Its creator Sandra Bravo is a favourite on this blog, and I wanted to take the opportunity now that this wine celebrates its 10 years anniversary. In fact the same wine has been featured before. Here is a link to the former blogpost.
The cultivation is organic, the must was fermented with natural yeasts in steel, clay and cement, and it spent some 6 months in used French oak barrels. In fact it was probably the first wine in Rioja to be elevated in amphora.
When I last reviewed it in 2017 the wine was at the height of its fruitiness, with a lot of cool, fresh red fruits, and also with a slightly roasted tone. Obviously, now all of that was gone giving way to the usual time markers. Drinking the wine was like a pleasant reunion with an old friend. I have another bottle that I will not save much longer though.
Sierra de Toloño 2014(Sierra de Toloño)
Deep granate with brick rim. Blackberry, with figs and prunes, leather and hint of underwood. Mature fruit in the mouth, medium weight, with mature tannins, integrated acidity. It’s a bit drying and past its prime, but nevertheless truly pleasant.
We had this wine at the Pura Cepa restaurant in Murcia. It was chosen from a quite extensive by the glass menu to go with a savoury turbot dish.
The Pura Cepa restaurant in Murcia
The Lagar de Sabaríz winery is located in San Amaro in Ourense, Galicia, that is just outside the boundaries of the DO Ribeiro. The founder Pilar Higuero works her vineyards biodynamically, though the climate is heavily influenced by the Atlantic and has high yearly rainfall.
The vineyard covers four hectares, at 400 metres above sea level, high for Ribeiro. The soil is granitic, which is typical for the area.
A Pita Cega is the Galician name for a children’s game. The varieties are mainly treixadura and albariño, with a collection of other grapes.
Grape bunches are pressed with stems and the must ferments with natural yeasts. The wine doesn’t undergo malolactic fermentation and there is no bâtonnage. It ages for 1 year in stainless steel, and a little sulphur dioxide is added before bottling.
The bottles weigh less than 400 g. And they bear no labels, as Pilar herself paints every bottle by hand. The corks come from protected forests.
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A Pita Cega 2015 (Lagar de Sabariz)
Pale cold yellow colour. Fresh aroma of apricot, citrus (baked lemon), pears and white flowers, towards a flinty background. In the mouth it’s fresh with a granitic minerality, with a lot of nerve, and with a slightly bitter and pleasant, long aftertaste. This is outstanding quality, The freshness is impressive for a wine of this age, and it should have many years ahead.
Raventós i Blanc is one of the leading producers of sparkling wine in Catalunya. Pepe Raventós has family links to the creator of the drink that came to be called cava. Still he was one of the first to leave the DO Cava, to establish his own appellation Conca del Riu Anoia. It is located in the Penedés comarca (area), in a valley between the Prelitoral and Litoral mountain ranges.
Raventós i Blanc makes mineral and saline wines, at a quality that is incredibly stable. I have never been disappointed.
De la Finca comes from a vineyard known as Vinya dels Fòssils. The old bush-trained vines were planted in 1964 on the highest terraces of the Anoia, on a soil covered with marine fossils. The orientation is predominantly northern, and there is spontaneous plant covers, that contribute to bring freshness to the wine. Viticulture is biodynamic. The grapes are the traditional blend xarel.lo, macabeu and parellada. Each variety and soil is vinified separately before settling together.
De La Finca 2021 (Raventós i Blanc)
Light straw yellow with fine bubbles. Aromas of lemon, yeast, lime and brioche, over a layer of smoke and herbs. Mineral in the mouth, a little austere, with a fresh acidity, completely dry. It’s Mediterranean in its ripeness, but it also shows a fresh side. Wonderfully balanced.
El Tiempo que nos une is one of the entry-level reds from Bodega Cerrón. They regard it as a tribute to family viticultural work. In fact it’s a Jumilla wine that don’t come from Murcia, as the winegrowing area also comprises a part of Albacete (Castilla-La Mancha).
Bodega Cerrón is a family project located in Fuente-Álamo, in Albacete. They are dedicated to recovering abandoned vineyards through organic and biodynamic practices and producing wines with a good balance between acidity, alcohol and fruit.
El Tiempo que nos une comes from pre-phylloxera vineyards with an average age of 70 years. They are old vines planted in mostly calcareous soils at an altitude of about 900 meters above sea level. Organic farming is carried out, and harvest is manual.
In the winery it undergoes spontaneous fermentation with 50% whole grapes in cement tanks, and after gentle pressing, the wine ages in foudres for 6 months.
El Tiempo Que Nos Une 2023(Bodega Cerrón)
Dark cherry red. Aromas of ripe black fruit, spice and white flowers. Decent concentration. Fresh and juicy in the mouth, balsamic, medium-bodied with fine-grained tannins. Typically Mediterranean and a good representative of its origin.
This wine was presented at a bring-a-bottle tasting in my local wine club. It shows a more fresh side of the ripasso style, as opposed to the more heavy and raisiny wines often found in the category.
The Musella Estate is located close to the village of Ferrazze, east of Verona, where their vineyards are biodynamically farmed.
Their ripasso has been produced since 1995. At the winery, unpressed amarone pomace is macerated with the fresh valpolicella (the so-called ripasso method). This enhances the colour and structure of the wine. The wine undergoes 12-15 days of fermentation and maceration on the skins with periodic racking followed by malolactic fermentation. The wine is then transferred to barrels of various sizes for 12 months.
Valpolicella Ripasso 2020(Musella)
Cherry red. Some fresh fruit, such as cherry, plums and blackcurrant. Behind is a layer of cinnamon and clove, and dried fruits, and also a hint of chocolate. Medium-bodied, with fine tannins, and a refreshing acidity. Finishes quite long.
This wine was one of many good wines in a xinomavro tasting in my local wine club last Monday. Xinomavro is the most emblematic grape in the northern part of Greece and is characterized by a light colour and crystalline tannins, not very unlike nebbiolo. The prices are generally sympathetic.
Kostis Dalamára is a sixth-generation winemaker in Naoussa, the historic region of Macedonia. When he took over the family estate in 2010 he introduced organic cultivation, spontaneous fermentation and reduced sulfur dioxide levels. The soil in the area is sandy loam to clay, which comes from former limestone and marl rocks.
The grapes for this wine are de-stemmed and fermented in steel tanks, macerates for some 25 days before being moved to 300-500 liter barrels to mature for 6 months in 10% new oak. The rest is 1-14 year old barrels.
Naossa 2021(Dalamára)
Ruby red. Aroma of mature strawberries, raspberry, sundried tomato and an earthy note. Medium-bodied, with those signature xinomavro tannins and a nice integrated acidity. It’s more fruity than most, somewhere between rusticity and elegance.
Pergola is an Italian-inspired wine bar near the center of Bergen, established in 2010 by Bjørn Johnsson. They boast a selection of almost 500 different wines to choose from. You can enjoy a glass with a pizza, with your desired topping, or a plate of antipasti. Among the wines, there is a selection of wines that they import themselves.
I was there with some other musicians after playing at one of the city’s jazz clubs. We had two of their own wines, from Toscana and Piemonte respectively, along with a white prosciutto pizza and charcuterie.
Vallone di Cecione is a small family run organic farm outside Panzano in Chianti. They are proud to offer the canaiolo as a varietal wine. The canaiolo grape is otherwise known for giving a mellow, soft character to a blend, such as the classic Chianti wines. Vallone di Cecione let it ferment in cement to keep the primary fruit characteristics intact.
Canaiolo 2017(Vallone di Cecione)
Light cherry red. Elegant aroma showing some evolution, with a touch of dried fruits, but also with cherry and herbs. Soft and round, medium acidity, but also some freshness, thanks to a slight touch of CO2. Decent length.
Cascina Ballarin is located in La Morra in the Barolo area. It was run by brothers Giorgio and Giovanni Viberti until 2022, and is now actually called Alberto Ballarin, after Giorgio’s son. They are practicing biodynamics and make the usual selection of wines from the region. This is their varietal dolcetto, based on 15-25 year old vines with an eastern orientation at 230 meters height. The wine is raised in stainless steel. No oak.
Dolcetto d`Alba 2021(Cascina Ballarin/ Alberto Ballarin)
Ruby red. On the fruity side, with a ripe scent of raspberry, a touch of blackberry and white pepper. Soft and juicy with elegant tannins and a nice acidity.
This is the second article in a series of three, about unfortified wines from the sherry district. This white table wine is just brilliant. It’s a palomino without additions, not even any influence of flor. It’s a sublime expression of grape and place.
Alejandro Muchada and his partner David Léclapart make incredible terroir-driven wines full of saline minerality, and always with a lovely texture. From three plots of a total of 3.6 hectares in Sanlúcar de Barrameda, Alejandro works according to biodynamic principles, and in the cellar he shows a hands-off philosophy..
The grapes for this wine is taken from Viña La Platera Vieja in Miraflores Baja, that is a 1.2 hectares plot. The soil is calcareous albariza, with a hard rock albariza type called “tosca cerrada”, under clayey limestone. The orientation is west and the vines are more than 60 years old.
The grapes were hand-harvested, directly pressed for 3-4 hours, spontaneously fermented and matured for 12 months on lees in used barrels. Bottled without filtering.
Lumière 2021(Muchada-Léclapart)
Yellow colour, slightly cloudy. Aroma of yellow apples, flowers, almonds, black olives and citrus and a touch of salt. Concentrated, medium-bodied, fruity in the mouth with almonds, smooth texture, mineral. Finishes very long. It has this extra nerve that is hard to define, but makes it a great wine. As the name might imply: Brilliant.
