Gota is a relatively new wine bar in Madrid, in the Chueca district. It’s quite hidden, with no signposts. You simply have to know where it is and look for the doorbell, that is the only place you can find the name. I popped in a couple of hours ago. I have booked my first visit to Les Mouvais Garçons, a few blocks away, tonight. But the talk of the town said that I should pay Gota a visit, so there was no time left, as I leave tomorrow.
Manager is Fede Graciano from Argentina. He opened Acid Café near Atocha some years ago, which is recommended for coffee freaks, and Acid Bakehouse (I think it was later). Nahuel is his sommelier, when he’s not making his own natural wine in El Tiemblo, Gredos.
At Gota they specialize in natural wines and homemade kombuchas. They offer a sharing menu that works well with their wine list. They specialize in music of various types, that can be as “acid” as the wines and reflecting the name of the original bar. But don’t think of it as a noisy place, it’s a haven, relaxed and perfect for wine lovers who want to disconnect after a hard day at work.
I had two wines at this first try.
Verbena 2022(Uva de Vida), a pét nat from Santa Olalla in the Toledo province, based on graciano and tempranillo made with direct press, malolactic, three months on lees and no additions.
Ruby red, with bubbles. Smells of cherries and flowers. Rounded in the mouth, no sharp acidity, but still fresh and saline. The wine is simple, but Herbie Hancock’s music is complex, says Nahuel, referring to what plays in the background.
1301 2021(Samuel Párraga), an orange wine vijiriega from the Málaga province partly made under flor.
Amber colour. On the nose, oxidized notes, like almonds and nuts, and flowers. Full and savoury, with a salty finish.
The pét nat went with an oyster, and the orange wine with rugbrød (I recognized the Norwegian/Danish spelling there), sourdough bread with butter and anchovies.
I am preparing for a trip to Spain and Bobal country. Bobal is native to Utiel-Requena (where it accounts for 80% of the red grapes) and surroundings in the comunidad of València. It is also very much at home in La Mancha, such as the Cuenca and Albacete provinces. But it can be found far beyond these boundaries. It is the third most grown red grape in Spain, having lost second place recently to garnacha.
The must is normally high in colorants and tannins and is suitable both for aging and for blending with other varieties. The wines tend to be fruity, low in alcohol content and high in acidity.
Bobal grapes affected by hail (Credit: iStock)
I ordered four wines present in my home market. I intend to visit all of the producers, so here I will only give a short presentation of each.
Aurelio García and his wife Micaela Rubio run the first project. They have both worked and consulted in various companies locally and nationally. Here they focus on their roots, their personal taste and local grape varieties and sites.
El Reflejo de Mikaela is in a way an entry-level wine. It is fermented with 30% whole bunches in stainless steel tanks, then aged in moderately porous French vessels made from clay and silica and barrels.
Casa lo Alto is a hamlet outside Venta del Moro, València, where the winery is located. Víctor Marqués is winemaker. The wine Manzán comes from three plots planted with bobal in bush-style between 1940 and 1965. The soil is calcareous clay, poor in organic matter. Use of chemical products is avoided and biodynamic preparations are used. In the winery the grapes are destemmed but not pressed. They undergo a spontaneous fermentation with native yeasts. After pressing, it is decanted into barrels with its lees for approximately 10 months.
Bruno Murciano is a trained sommelier. In 2005 he started his project to make his own wine. He bought 8 ha of old vineyards with bobal in his hometown of Caudete de las Fuentes. In 2010 the first wine was made together with friends, and most of all his brother José Luís, who brought with him experience on how to work biodynamically, among other things.
L’Alegría is made with grapes from the Las Brunas vineyard located at 900 m above sea level. The vines are 85 years old, grown in clay soil. The wine is made in steel tanks.
Bodegas Mustiguillo of Utiel is one of the farms that have their own DO Vino de Pago. Owner Antonio Sarrión is also currently resigning after his period as president for the group Grandes Pago de España. The pago is El Terrerazo, a 160 ha property in Utiel. When Sarrión took over, and after having purchased nearby plots from local farmers, he planned to launch equal parts of bobal, tempranillo and cabernet sauvignon. But soon he realized the potential for the local grape, and bobal is now by far the leading grape in Mustiguillo’s reds.
Finca Terrerazo is a monovarietal bobal from wine from vineyards 800 meters above sea level, on very poor soils with limestone with a sandy-loam texture, from old vines planted between 1945 and 1970. Each plot was vinified separately. Fermentation in oak vats with native yeasts for 8-10 days, with gentle pump-overs and pigéage. Aged for 14 months in French oak. Bottled without stabilizing or filtering.
El Reflejo de Mikaela 2018(Micaela Rubio & Aurelio García)
Dark, blueish hint. Mature fruit, blueberry, cherry, herbs. Good acidity, dryness of strong earl grey tea, or maybe crushed stone.
L’Alegría 2019(Bruno & J.L. Murciano)
Dark, quite dense. Mature black and red fruits (blackberry, cherry), eucalyptus, coffee. Good volume, abundant tannins, spice, quite big but also with some elegance. A couple of years of cellaring is recommended.
Finca Terrerazo 2019(Bodega Mustiguillo)
Dark cherry. Dark and red fruits (blackberry, raspberry), spice, some toast. Good volume, firm tannins, good fruit and acidity, and a mineral touch. Bears 14,5° alcohol well. A couple of years further ageing recommended here too.
At home after two lovely days in Sierra de Gredos I was inspired to extend the trip a little. So I fetched a wine from the cellar. I had a couple of other quite recent vintages. But I chose the current, 2020, to be able to refill.
Daniel Jiménez-Landi is part of the dynamic duo Comando G. But his family has deep roots in the Toledo province, and this wine is from there, within the Méntrida denomination to be more exact.
Las Uvas de la Ira, meaning The Grapes of Wrath, is a village wine made from old-vine garnacha in four different vineyards high up in El Real de San Vicente, Gredos.
Uvas de la Ira 2020 (D. Jiménez-Landi)
Ruby red, blueish hint. Red fruits (raspberry, strawberry), flowers, a layer of smoke and stone minerality. It’s youthful and a bit fleshy in the mouth, with young tannins and a fresh acidity. It’s quite concentrated, at the same time it has an ethereal quality typical of Gredos garnachas.
I am in Murcia for the holiday season. I have bought a wine cupboard and filled it with a collection of wines delivered from the national chain Vinissimus. This year I bought only one local wine (and it was the same as last year, see here). But from over in La Mancha, not far away in Manchuela, I have three wines from the same producer.
Juan Antonio Ponce works biodynamically in the vineyard, and in the winery he takes a natural approach, using low levels of sulfur dioxide. The bunches are chilled and fermented without de-stemming. Freshness is another priority when working with bobal, with harvests before most of the neighbours to avoid ripe or stewed sensations.
Clos Lojen is 100% bobal from vineyards on limestone-clay soil at 800 meters. It had a short maceration and aging for 3-4 months in used French oak barrels. Buena Pinta is not a bobal. Moravia agria, a native grape from Castilla-La Mancha, accounts for 90%, and the rest is garnacha. Moravia is noted for its acidity and blends well with garnacha. It’s aged for 7 months in used 600-liter French oak barrels and bottled without filtering or clarifying. Pie Franco was maybe the first wine I tried from Juan Antonio, and immediately put him on the throne as the King of Bobal. One can wonder how wines tasted before phylloxera. Without going into further discussion I can only say that there is a timeless air over this wine, fruit of old vines bobal planted in sandy soils where phylloxera did not enter. For me a doubtless classic.
Clos Lojén 2021: Cherry red. Fresh and fruit-driven aroma of cherry and blackberry, herbs and a peppery note. Juicy in the mouth with fine tannins wrapped in fruit, and with fresh acidity. Youthful and serious.
Buena Pinta 2021: Bright ruby red. Perfumed and complex aroma with cherries, plums, flowers, herbs, and balsamic hints. On the palate it is very fresh and vivid, with evident tannins, and a slightly bitter aftertaste. Fascinating, between fragility and strength.
Pie Franco 2021: This is a more powerful wine. Dark cherry red. Aromatic, with black fruits, scrubland and also balsamic notes (eucalyptus) Structured, with mature tannins and mineral notes. A timeless classic.
No trip to Madrid is complete without a visit to Carlos Campillo’s Cascorro Bistrot. Located by the Plaza de Cascorro where the Rastro market are held on Sundays, it’s the place where Carlos Campillo currently stays. Carlos, with French background, has had several places of the bistro type including natural wines in Madrid. One of its predecessors can you read about here. He has also organized natural wine fairs in town.
This Sunday I started with an Uva Attack, the 2020 version of the ancestral. Carlos explains that Jesús Sánchez-Mateos Campo, the enologue of the coop Alcázar de San Juan in Ciudad Real has made this wine together with Ezequiel Sánchez Mateos, proprietor of the wine shop Reserva y Cata. They launch it under the brand Galdo Wines. Here it shows how fresh a sparkler from the grape airén can be: Light golden, somewhat cloudy; yellow apples, fennel; good acidity, citrusy mouthfeel, and a touch of lemongrass. A quite simple wine really, but appealing.
Las Pilas from Luís Oliván, was also in its 2020 vintage. It’s a quite dark garnacha with violet hints; dark fruits and licorice; juicy in the mouth, light-bodied with some tannin. It comes from the southwest of Somontano with abundant north wind. The wine rests up to six months in big, used barrels. I had it with duck confit.
Paeriza is a wine from Samuel Cano of Cuenca, a favourite of mine, and also a friend of the house. “es-carbó” as indicated on the label, gives allusions to snails, and maybe also low-carb. It’s a dark syrah with aromas of wild berries, herbs and a touch of aceton; lively in the mouth, with dark fruits all the way to the finish.
La Garulla 2019 from Bodega Honorato Callejo has “origen sin denominación” (origin without denomination), according to its label. In reality it has, even if no DO. Agricultural student Pablo and his father Honorato Calleja make it in Amusquillo de Esgueva. This is in the Esgueva valley that runs between the Duero and Pisuerga valleys, in western Ribera del Duero. By the way, they also have some grapes in Valbuena in the neighboring valley.
Pure tempranillo, it’s a dark cherry coloured wine with typical varietal aromas of red fruits and blackberries. Fresh and fruity in the mouth, with fine-grained tannins. The back label says fermented in barrique, but it has zero trace of this.
Samuel Cano’s aromatic, delicious pét-nat Micmac2020 was served on the next day. Made of airen/moscatel, it showed light yellow (no notes of bubbles); pears and flowers on the nose. The bubbles are noted in the mouth, with good acidity and also some light varietal (moscatel) bitterness.
La Caníbal is a natural wine bar in the Lavapiés barrio in central Madrid. It’s often called a Galician bar. Maybe because their sister restaurant O Pazo de Lugo is in the other half of the locale. The latter was established back in 1971. (For another natural wine bar in the same neighborhood, read here.)
First time of two at La Caníbal I arrived in the bar without reservation, and I walked into the part that I later came to know as O Pazo de Lugo (pazo being a manor house and Lugo one of the Galician province capitals). While waiting to be seated in the restaurant part I enjoyed a glass of albariño, Albamar 2020. Its creator is Xurxo Alba, whom I met at a fair a few years ago. It’s made with grapes from different parcels in Castrelo, outside Cambados in Rías Baixas. A lovely straw, clean sight; aroma of citrus, pears and stony minerals, a touch of white pepper; quite glyceric, with integrated acidity and a long, saline finish. A small bowl of green olives, onion, paprika was also served while I was waiting.
La Caníbal’s combined tap board – and wine list for these wines. There is a similar board for artisan beer.
La Caníbal has a tap system where they serve various wines. Their website insists that they are not bulk wines though, but authentic terroir wines, which their winegrowing friends pack exclusively for them. They can also be bought from their shop in formats such as a two liter bag-in-box.
Bodegas Bentomiz is located in Sayalonga, Málaga (read a report on a visit here). The grapes for this wine are grown predominantly in Córdoba, 90% pedro ximénez. The rest is moscatel from their home farm. Light straw; pear, citrus and flowers; rounded and yet light in the mouth. I don’t know if the wine has a name. Let’s call it Blanco 2020.
Pulpo a feira, their signature dish through 50 years (they claim since the opening in 1971): Squid, one big potato in the middle, and a generous quantity of sea salt on both sides.
They even make wine. Next was collaboratively made by La Caníbal and Marc Isart, for many famous for being formerly part of Comando G of Gredos. But otherwise he is an authority in Spain’s central areas. Las Nieves2021 is a malvar from a single plot of old vines in Chinchón where the soil is calcareous with clay. Malvar is Madrid’s own variety. It’s most often cultivated high. When paired with airén, another Central Spain cultivar, it tends to be the acidic and aromatic part of the blend. Back to this particular wine: One half is fermented with skins in clay, the other without in oak barrels. It showed a “blushing brown” colour; aroma of mature apples, channel, herbs (thyme) and an earthy tone; in the mouth it played with oxidation, but had adequate acidity and a mineral touch. A fascinating orange wine.
Luís Oliván makes wine in several regions. To La Caníbal he currently delivers a Moristel 2021 for sale on tap and in a one liter bottle. It’s cherry red, simple, juicy and fruity. Pure joy.
El Sueño de las Aforjas of León is the bodega behind the next wine, Prieto Picudo Ecológico 2021, from the variety of that name, matured one year in concrete. Dark cherry; red and dark fruits (blueberry, morello); fine tannins, fresh acidity and a touch sweetness (banana).
Galician empanada, homemade every day
Nietos de la Señora María is located in the Alto Alberche area of Gredos. The bodega is located at 1.300 meters altitude and the four brothers who run it are guided by Daniel Ramos, a very clever vinegrower in the area. This wine comes from their ten hectares of garnacha between 40 and 60 years old. Ruby red; aromas of red fruits and herbs; a distinctive granite/pencil flavour, fine-grained tannins and a luscious body. A gastronomic wine. It’s called Garnacha on the board, and the vintage is 2020, by the way.
Fancy some cheese while summing it all up? La Caníbal have their own cheese sommelier. To make the choice easier for you the platters have musical names, like Rock’n’Roll, Indie and Celta. Pick your favourite! Strike your wine chords!
I am in Madrid, because I always start a trip to the central and northern areas of Spain with some days in its grand, magnificent capital that has everything to offer. This week’s pick is from the natural wine bar Bendito, that is located inside the multicultural San Fernando market, close to the two hotels where I most often stay when in Madrid.
Vinegrower Julian Ruíz-Villanueva is located in Castilla-La Mancha, in the village Quero (Toledo). His bodega Esencia Rural is named in honour to all those who spend their lives and dedication to the daily work at their farms.
This natural “ancestral” (sparkling) wine is made from the variety airén exclusively. It originates from 38 hectares in the hot inland landscape, with very old vineyards on sandy-calcareous soil. Here there is no irrigation, no chemical treatments, and everything is done by hand. After destemming a maceration is carried out without pressing, so only the virgin juice is used. Fermentation is obviously happening spontaneously with autochtonous yeasts, and bottled without filtration or addition of sulphur, early so it develops its bubbles in the bottle. As a side-step, one time I met Julián at the Fenavin fair in Ciudad Real he showed an airén must that had been fermenting for (…how long was it…?) 3 years. Finally it’s put no the market without dégorgement (removing the sediments).
Pampaneo Ancestral 2020 (Esencia Rural)
Light yellow colour, fine bubbles. Citrus (lemon) dominates the aroma, accompanied by pears and flowers. It’s a simple wine, lovely and fresh, with an ample lemony acidity and saline finish.
Price: Low
Food: Aperitif, white fish, shellfish, salads. At Bendito it was served with charcuterie.
10th and 11th February there were two natural wine fairs in Barcelona. Both days the Saló de Vins Naturales (aka Vins Nus, meaning Naked Wines) was organized by the PVN (Productores de Vinos Naturales in Spain), while Monday 11th there was the Vella Terra, organized by Alejandra Delfino and Stefano Fraternali. Both fairs had guided tastings on the side, and there were parties in addition to the main fairs, and Barcelona was simply the place to be!
The 6th edition of the Vins Nus was held in the Nau Bostik building in the La Sagrera quarter, a place for cultural meetings. What place could better house the Vins Nus, that holds a position as the leading fair nationally for Spanish natural wines.
Most producers were Spanish, but there were also some from abroad, especially from France and Italy.
Here I met old friends and familiar producers. And there were some revelations too, of some I had only known the name or maybe tasted one wine.
In this post I can only mention some highlights. And I will try to limit myself to only one wine from each producer.
Lorenzo Valenzuela, Barranco Oscuro
Barranco Oscuro is a true classic on the Spanish natural wine scene, and has also been one of the founders and driving forces behind the PVN, who organizes this fair. From the high altitude vineyards in the Alpujarras of Granada they bring out one wine more inspiring than the other. One of my favourites has long since been the Garnata, a garnacha from the most elevated vineyards now in the 2014 vintage: Cherry red; very fresh, red fruits, clover, aromatic herbs; fleshy, tasty with a mineral finish.
Samuel Cano, Vinos Patio
This is a producer I have known for a long time. There is something intriguing about all the wines. It would be strange to call them cool, because they reflect the warmth of sunny La Mancha. This is Quijote’s land, near some old-fashioned windmills in the Cuenca province. Most wines have Patio in the name, such as the lovely white airén Aire en el Patio and the dark, raisiny dessert wine Al Sol del Patio. I also tasted four of Samuel’s wines at an arrangement at the bar Salvatge a couple of days before, so I limited myself to four wines at his table. A newcomer, or one I didn’t know before was Mic Mac, a delicious, flowery, super fruity blend of airén and moscatel.
This time I chose the white, or more accurately, rosé Atardecer en el Patio 2017 (from the red tinto velasco grape). It’s quite floral, with apple and peach. In the mouth it’s round and fruity, I reckon it must have some residual sugar, and would be perfect for an afternoon (atardecer) in the patio.
Fabio Bartolomei of Vinos Ambiz
I have met Italo-Scot Fabio, former translator, many times at fairs and visits to Madrid and Gredos. He makes many cuvées with variations in time of skin-contact, ageing (varying time and type of container) and so on. All the wines, how different they may be, carry his personal stamp. The focus has shifted from the the vineyards just outside the capital to the high sites of El Tiemblo (Ávila), Gredos, and we might be seeing the beginning of something great, and his albillo real wines from granite soil can be said to bear the torch here. Doré (a synonym of chasselas) is a grape that he has brought to the fore during the recent years. Now the wine comes under the name Doris. The 2018 is yellow-gold, slightly cloudy; smells of mature apples and is also flowery; quite full on the palate, grapey and sapid.
Ramón Saavedra of Cauzón (left)
Ramón was enthusiastic and happy to show his 2018 vintage; the white Cauzón, a lovely strawberry-scented pinot rosé, the four grape Ira Dei and the Mozuelo, a red fruits luscious garnacha. I chose the Duende 2018, a wonderful syrah through several vintages: Dark cherry; fruity, earthy and slightly spicy; fleshy and tasty with young tannins.(Read more about his bodega and his wines in a post from 2017.)
Nacho González, La Perdida
La Perdida is a splendid producer in Valdeorras (Galicia). Nacho uses the traditional grapes godello, mencía and garnacha tintorera, but also palomino, and more unlikely varieties such as sumoll. I like his range on a general basis, such as the palomino skin-contact MalasUvas, the Proscrito, a reddish white from palomino and a small amount garnacha tintorera. The one that I chose for lunch that day was O Poulo 2018, a garnacha tintorera: Dark, fruity, with red berries, some green pepper, very clean and elegant with fruit all the way.
Joan Carles, La Gutina
I visited La Gutina of Empordà a couple of days before (a brief article from that visit to follow), so there was no need to taste the whole portfolio again. But a wine they didn’t present then was Gluglu 2018, a carbonic maceration garnacha, strawberry scented with good volume in the mouth, but also a fresh acidity. Fun and authentic.
Angélica Amo López and Julien Ben Hamou, Coruña del Conde
Ribera del Duero can not be called a stronghold for natural wines. But Coruña del Conde, a bodega in the settlement of the same name outside Aranda, is among the torchbearers. I came across the following wine at the Cascorrot Bistrot in Madrid (read about it here). The latest edition is Don’t panic I’m only natural 2018 #5: Dark, violet colour; fruity with red berries and blackberry; juicy, with smooth tannins.
Diego Losada, La Senda (picture taken the night before at bar Salvatge)
La Senda of Bierzo is another producer that I have been exposed to at Cascorro, Madrid. In my opinion everything from here is good, and I would be surprised if these wines will not be much more in demand in the future. La Senda white, red, all very clean, pure, the right amount of acidity, and with a sense of place. I chose La Senda “1984” 2017, the latter the vintage and the former a reference to Orwell’s novel. It’s cherry red, super fruity, with cherries, plums, medium body, and a lovely integrated natural acidity.
Torcuato Huertas, Purulio
Purulio is a neighbour of Cauzón in Guadix (Granada), except this is found even higher, at 1.200 meters, in the small settlement of Marchal. Most of the wines are interesting and good, marked both by the sunny south and the high elevation, though sometimes I’d wished the oak treatment had stopped just a little while before. The one I liked best this time was maybe the aromatic Purulio 2018 (sample, 5 months in oak), with its berry aromatics, flowery sensations and a quite cool acidity.
Vinotauro 2016, a pinot with the not-too-well hidden wordplay on the label
Josep Dasca (right), with Ludovic Darblade (co-owner of bar Salvatge in the middle)
Among this years’ revelations Dasca Vives presented some impressive and different wines from l’Alt Camp, Tarragona province. They work well with the maccabeu variety, that is also the one behind their rounded, maturely fruity Llunàtic and the Vi Ranci. Another speciality is the vinyater variety. (Read here about their wine from this interesting grape.)
Now back to the rancio. This is an oxidized wine, most often from the grenache/garnatxa, and it takes some 8-10 years before it’s “rancified”. This particular wine was made from white grapes though. Josep and Alba explain that some ten years ago they put white wine from the grape variety macabeu in a barrel with a some kind of “dense vi ranci”, that Josep’s father has in a very old and broken barrel. They also added a little of alcohol (it’s the only time that they had done so). Now they have started to sell it. Sometimes more white wine is added, but the barrel is never full, so the wine is always in contact with oxygene. The Vi Ranci had a mahogany colour, nutty aroma (almonds, hazelnut), notes of iodine, reminiscent of a relatively young amontillado sherry. In the mouth it was full and glyceric, with some tannin. My notes say nothing about how sweet it was; if my memory doesn’t fail me I think it was kind of off-dry, anyway there was nothing at all disturbing.
Maribel and Juanjo of Alumbro
Alumbro of Zamora, Castilla y León was another discovery, with their wonderfully expressive wines, from the slightly turbid, fruity-grapey orange wine called Blanco 2016 (verdejo-godello-albillo), via the dark orange, perfumed moscatel Maeve 2018 to a couple of reds. Should I pick only one it could be the truly inspiring Berretes 2016 of albillo real/ godello 50/50: Orange, slightly cloudy; plums, apples, yellow tomatoes; some tannins. Linear, fruity.
Iker García of Hontza, Labraza (Rioja Alavesa) showed that he has something interesting going on. Another one to watch is La Zafra, of Monòver, Alicante.
I’m sorry for all the producers from abroad, that I had too little time for this Sunday. But we’ll meet again, I hope.
Greeted by a Brazilian style percussion band by the Arc de Triomf, on my way to the fair
If there is one person that comes to mind when talking about natural wines in Madrid, it’s Carlos Campillo. I don’t know about everything he has done, but since I met him he has run Le Petit Bistrot in the old town, Solo de Uva, by the Berlin park north of the city centre, and now this wine bar at Plaza de Cascorro in the centric La Latina district. He has played a central role as regards numerous natural wine fairs in the city, and many of the names familiar for me now I have first been served by Carlos.
While we don’t forget the food, and the small dishes so well elaborated, it’s the wine that we concentrate on here.
Natural wines in Madrid has a name: Carlos Campillo
This particular time I had arrived from Rioja, and I brought a wine from Ojuel (the producer behind the magnificent sweet wine Supurao) that I wanted him to taste. So we opened it. The room was packed, so I was standing by the bar. Next to me an importer (of Champagne and other wines to Spain) heard what we were talking about, and joined both the conversation and the tasting. This is just that kind of bar; nothing complicated, the one next to you is your friend, join the fun!
None of us has yet mastered the art of taking selfies to perfection, but we managed to get both faces and the bottle inside the frame
Oxuel Salvaje 1 2016 (Ojuel)
This is a wine from the garnacha variety, grown in Sojuela village between the Najerilla and the Irégua valleys of La Rioja. Biodynamically treated, and fermented in used French oak. Purple colour; redcurrant and strawberry nose, a bit earthy with aromatic spices; sapid, with a refreshing acidity, a vibrant and long finish.
Here are a few of the other wines I tasted this time, and the next.
Bonny Giornata 2017(Vinos Ambiz)
Bonny means fine, nice or beautiful in Scottish, and giornata is day in Italian. This wine is made by Italo-Scot Fabio Bartolomei and Antonio Sicurezza, his Italian friend. This carbonic maceration wine is made near Albeche river in Sierra de Gredos at 750 meters of altitude. It’s a fresh and vibrant, red fruits dominated, low alcohol garnacha (12%) with medium body.
Torcuato Huertas makes wine in Marchal, municipality of Guadix, in the highlands east of Granada. His wine are marked both by high altitude (up to 1.200 meters) and southern geography. From just 3 hectares he grows more than 20 varieties.
Carlos poured just a sip of both, the multi-varieal Purulio Blanco 2016 was a tasty, robust wine with some skin-contact peel aromas from Torcuato’s lower plot (at “just” 900 meters), while the Jaral (2016 too, I think – my notes are not easy to read here) was made with red grapes from higher up. This was more fresh and elegant, with notes of blueberry, blackberry and just a bit leathery. Purulio Tinto 2016 is a mix between the two, and shows it, both in the fresh fruit and the rich mouthfeel.
Vinos Patio of Castilla-La Mancha is a long time favourite at Carlos’ restaurants. The Aire en el Patio 2016 is a skin-contact airén, very much alive, tasty, with a pure fruit, smooth texture and a round mouthfeel.
As I mentioned, this was not my latest visit to Carlos’ bar at Cascorro. I was there a short time ago, on a Sunday. If you have been a tourist to Madrid you know about the Rastro flee market. While I must admit I had my doubts if the people would be able to find his Solo de Uva, here we are in the midst of the Rastro. -Very good for the business, says Carlos. And let’s really hope that this will thrive and keep its position as the bastion of natural wine in Madrid. Today there are signs that something is on the move, with new bars and restaurants, and plans for more. But in difficult times it’s Carlos who has been holding the fort, almost alone.
From this last busy Sunday visit I will just mention three wines that Carlos poured in a hurry, all from the Castilla y León region. La Senda of Bierzo is a winery I must check out and come back to, because both wines were fabulous.
The Vindemiatrix 2017 was a dark violet, cherry and plums-scented wine with a pure taste, fine-grained tannins, and a really nice natural acidity. The cherry red “1984” 2017 showed super fruit, with cherries, plums, cloves and a lovely acidity. Both are wines to drink, but they are far away from simple.
Coruña del Conde is such a rare thing as a natural wine producer in Ribera del Duero. They are found near Aranda, so I’ll have to check it out next time in the area. The I’m Natural, Don’t Panic 2016 un-oaked tempranillo wine (with a small amount of albillo mayor) was dark violet of colour, with a good fruit, mature red berries and blackberry; fleshy and smooth in the mouth and with an inspiring acidity. Sincere, interesting.
London’s Raw fair is over. This wine fair, founded by Isabelle Légeron (now also with meetings in Berlin and New York), is a two day celebration of individual, organic wines with a wide range of exhibitors. But what unifies them is their desire to express their place in their own unique way. Some have a no sulphur approach, while some are more pragmatic to this question.
This year the fair was back at the Strand, in central London, after two years further east. The venue is open and clean with good light, good for wine tasting. Wine bar and restaurant Noble Rot had their stand, and it was possible to savour food of many sorts.
Most of the artisans came from Europe. The bigger wine producing countries like Italy and France, and to a certain extent Spain, had their fair shares of exhibitors. But smaller wine countries were also represented, maybe most surprisingly Romania and the Czech Republic.
Among the more established producers, especially in this context, were Eric Texier (with expressive wines from Côtes du Rhône), the Catalan trio Mas Martinet-Venus la Universal (from Priorat/ Montsant, with increased focus on fruitiness than before), and mainly sparkling wine producers Mas de Serral- Pepe Raventòs and Recaredo-CellerCredo, Frank Cornelissen (who really has become a top Sicilian producer in every respect), not to mention Friulian neighbours Radikon and Gravner with their textbook skin-contact wines.
An opportunity for vignerons like Fabio Bartolomei to communicate directly with their audience
There were many contenders. Aside of the aforementioned ones here producers that I have appreciated for a long time were from France, Dom. Milan (Provence), Dom.de Clovallon (Languedoc); from Italy, Carussin-Bruna Ferro (Piemonte), Corte Sant’Alda (Veneto), 1701 (Franciacorta); Spain, Vinos Ambiz (Gredos/ Madrid); Portugal, both two participants, Quinta da Palmirinha (Minho) and Casa de Mouraz (Dão); Austria, Meinklang (Burgenland).
But not least is this an occasion to be surprised.
Here follow some memorable moments.
Éric Teixier
Chat Fou 2016(Éric Teixier)
A light entry here: A luscious, inspiring côtes du rhône. Light ruby; red berries, herbal, lightly spiced; juicy, fresh, just a hint of tannins, good acidity. A light, elegant vintage of this wine.
Carles and Montse
Carles Mora Ferrer and his close friend Montse have produced natural wines since 2008; no chemicals, no additives. I chose their cabernet; not pressed, fermented in inox, 20-25 days of maceration. Total sulphites is a mere 4 mg/L.
Cabernet Sauvignon Ánfora 2015(Clot de les Soleres)
Dark cherry, violet hint; red fruits, blackcurrant, green pepper; structured, good acidity.
Mas Martinet has been a favourite for many years, and maybe the most influential among the Priorat “pioneers” from the 1980’s, thanks to both father Josep Lluís’ teachings, daughter Sara’s and son-in-law René’s consulting and general inspiration through their wines. Sara Pérez, current winemaker, was also in the avant-garde when turning to organics in the early 2000’s. Venus is their side project in Montsant. Here I chose their white Venus, a varietal xarel.lo, fermented 20% with skins and elevated in big barrels. No added sulphite.
Venus Blanc 2014(Venus la Universal)
Yellow colour; very fresh, citrus, litchi some balsamic; glyceric, creamy and saline. So expressive!
Ivan and Ana Gómez
Bodegas Gratias of Castilla-La Mancha showed some good wines. I chose a field blend of some 20 varieties, many of them in danger of extinction, a crowdfunding project, “gratias to all those people
(‘gratias mecenas’) who believed” in the project, as they say. Fermentation was carried out in small deposits of 5 hectoliters, with whole clusters. The ageing was carried out no the lees, in oak, jars and steel. No clarification or cold stabilization.
¿Y tu de quién eres? 2016(B. Gratias)
Dark cherry colour; red and dark fruits, a hint of spice; juicy and drinkable, but also with a touch of dryness (from the stems).
Thyge of Bodega Frontío
Here were several surprises at one stand: A new, young producer in the remote Arribes, Castilian area bordering Portugal. Furthermore the man behind the bodega is Danish, Thyge Benned Jensen. I’m learning every year, says Thyge, which is good. But much is already very good: Taste his two-weeks skin-contact Naranjito, another surprise for this region. The variety is doña blanca (even though the label indicates something else).
Naranjito 2017 (B. Frontío)
Yellow with orange tones; mature apples, some peel; quite glyceric, with a supple acidity.
Andrea and Petr Nejedlich of Dobrá
Cuvée Kambrium 2014(Dobrá Vinice)
A wine from the Podyji national park in Moravia, Czech Republic, a blend of veltlín, ryzlink and sauvignon, as the back label reads. Light colour; gooseberry, white pepper; both round and light, but with good acidity too.
See also an article about Moravian wines tasted in England here.
Mladen Rožanić, jazz fan with creative Istrian wines
Roxanich of Croatian peninsula Istria makes powerful natural wines.
This is a field blend including syrah, cabernet franc, lambrusco, barbera, borgonja, malvasia nera. Bottling went without filtration, after 9 years of aging in big wooden vats and barrels. I like the reds. But the white ones, most often orange in colour, really has an unequalled quality. You can read more about them and another featured wine here.
Ines U Crvenom (in Red) 2008(Roxanich)
Red, developed colour (towards orange); a volatile feeling, mature red berries, dried fruits and roasted almonds; weighty, packed with fruit, plays with oxidation.
Fernando Paiva and his importer Ricardo Rodrigues of Portuguese Story
Fernando’s wines are marked by the Atlantic influence. His whites are covered several places on this site. This time he showed that the light (light-weight, not light in colour) vinhão can be fascinating when aged too. So that must be the choice.
Quinta da Palmirinha Vinhão 2012 (F. Paiva)
Dark with violet and some red; incredibly fresh, cherry and tint; round, mineral, with integrated acidity. It has an uplifting lightness, a feeling of weightlessness.
Marinella Camerani
Corte Sant’Alda is a well-known Valpolicella producer, mostly in the more classic end of the spectrum. But the wines are thoroughly made, they are good, and they have nothing of the negative characteristics that the area has become known for in many wine circles today. Their classic wines are good. And Marinella presented an intriguing varietal molinara rosé aged in Tuscan amphorae, a vino de tavola with a total of 2 mg sulphur.
Agathe 2016(Corte Sant’Alda)
Salmon pink; flowers, strawberry and a touch of white pepper; no the palate quite smooth, but also with a surprisingly high acidity.
Lorenzo (left) and Andrea Pendin: Thumbs up for another inspiring meeting
L’Armonia of Vicenza (Veneto), Italy was one of the really great finds at this year’s Raw. Among many good wines I chose this wonderful garganega, from older plants (60-80 years). This is both an early harvest and a late harvest (with some botrytis), then blended. The different harvest times are due to Andrea’s friendship with and inspiration from Sébastien Riffault of Loire. (Read more here.)
Perla 2016 (Tenuta l’Armonia)
Complex aroma of mature apples, nuts, flowers, apricot, towards honey; medium full on the palate, and a salty, mineral aftertaste. Integrated, natural acidity.
