Last night at Gota, the tiny bar in Madrid’s Chueca district, I was poured a glass of Bailando en el Filo 2024 by Victoria Sánchez, one half of the duo behind Pequeños y Salvajes. On an earlier visit it was Nahuel Ibarra who stood behind the bar. It seems only fitting that their wine appears in a place that shares their spirit: small, lively and a little wild.
The wine comes from El Tiemblo in the Sierra de Gredos, a landscape of old vines and granite soils that has become one of the most exciting sources of Garnacha in central Spain. It’s made by carbonic maceration.
Bailando en el Filo — “dancing on the edge” — is an apt name. The wine has that same sense of balance and risk. There is something refreshingly unforced about it, almost as if the wine were being made in the moment. It feels improvised, like music played without a written score — yet guided by instinct and intuition.
Bailando en el Filo 2024 (Pequeños y Salvajes)
Light ruby red. Bright red berries, wild herbs and a faint earthy note rise from the glass. The palate is lively and finely textured, with freshness and lightness carrying the wine effortlessly forward. Serious glou-glou.
One of the defining expressions of high-altitude garnacha from Spain, Pegaso Pizarra comes from very old bush vines planted on steep, slate-rich soils in Cebreros, within the wild mountains of Sierra de Gredos. These vines thrive above 950 m on metamorphic rock, working organically and hand-harvested to capture purity and place — the very essence of this dramatic terroir.
At the heart of this wine is Telmo Rodríguez, one of Spain’s most influential vignerons. For over three decades he has championed forgotten vineyards and traditional viticulture across the country, seeking to restore ancient sites and make wines that speak of history and landscape rather than manipulation. His work with Pegaso (named after a classic Spanish vehicle) helped put Cebreros on the map, revitalising this rugged corner of Castilla y León and focusing on old vines, organic practices and slow, natural winemaking.
Made from 100% garnacha from bush-trained vines over 80 years old, fermentation happens with indigenous yeasts and the wine is aged extensively in a mix of oak barrels (400–500 L).
Pegaso Pizarra 2018(Telmo Rodríguez)
The wine shows a medium ruby colour with clear garnet and faint brownish tones at the rim, indicating some evolution. On the nose, it is complex and expressive, moving beyond primary fruit. Dried red cherries, wild strawberries and cranberry are joined by Mediterranean herbs, dried flowers and graphite. With air, more savoury notes emerge: leather, tobacco leaf, subtle smoke and a hint of earth. The palate is silky yet structured, with finely grained tannins, herbs and dried fruits, black tea and spice. Acidity is well judged, giving length and clarity, while the finish is long and stony.
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.
An armada of Spanish producers visited Stavanger, Norway this last Tuesday with their importer Moestue Grape Selections. I participated at the following dinner at Matbaren Renaa.
Visiting from Spain were Telmo Rodríguez, Fernando García (Comando G) and Carlos “Curro” Bareño (Fedellos and Vinícola Mentridiana). Pedro Parra from Itata, Chile should have been there, but was left somewhere in Europe with covid.
Paired with the restaurant’s lobster, lamb and quail dishes were seven wines. The fino Caberrubia Saca VI from Luís Pérez was a welcome drink, a natural sherry from pago Balbaína outside Jerez. It’s a grapey, salty and fresh sherry with no added alcohol.
Telmo Rodríguez introduced his white Branco de Santa Cruz 2020 from Valdeorras. He tells that this is one of the places he spends most time nowadays. It’s made from that premium northern grape godello, with some treixadura, doña blanca and palomino, all found in a mixed vineyard together with red varieties, and matured in used oak vats. It’s a super elegant wine with good volume, textured, and a complex aroma of citrus, herbs, a touch of menthol and a stony minerality.
Fedellos started as Fedellos do Couto because they were based in that village. Now they have moved. They make wines from the Bibei valley. Peixeda Estrada2019 is a village wine from Viana do Bolo outside both Valdeorras and Ribeira Sacra designated areas, a field blend of 60-80 year old vines with predominantly mencía made with whole bunches in partially used barrels, steel, concrete and/or fiberglass tanks. Long maceration time and light extractions. It’s a fresh, delicate wine with aromas of red and dark fruits along with herbs and some balsamic.
Pedro Parra couldn’t attend as he was sick with covid and stuck somewhere in Europe. But his wines made it to Norway. Pedro is a leading figure in the new terroir-focused Chilean wave, concentrating on cinsault on granite soils. He tries to make his wines in a reductive way, at present with 20 days skin-contact.
Trane was obviously (?) dedicated to John Coltrane, an innovator and creative jazz musician. It’s a single-vineyard cinsault from a plot of highly decomposed granite soils. It fermented in concrete with indigenous yeasts and some 30% full clusters and matured in big oak vats for 11 months. It’s a light wine, but also structured. The fruit is both dark and red, with hints of flowers, anise and smoke.
Fernando García represented Comando G, that has contributed to putting the Gredos mountains on the wine map. They were also on this trip promoting the book Calicata, about the wine region. The English edition was released a few months ago, and Moestue sells it on the Norwegian market. In fact I was visiting Fernando at his table when another wine was passed around. I didn’t realize this in time, but my fiancée gave me a few drops to taste. It had a strong signature of a Gredos garnacha, ruby red, ethereal, with red fruits (raspberry), flowers and smoke – in a way light, but intensely full of flavours. It turned out to be Las Iruelas 2019, a parcel wine from El Tiemblo in the Ávila province. It was earlier made by the Jiménez-Landi family winery, but is now labelled Comando G.
The last wine was a lovely rioja from the new wave, that I advocate, Telmo’s Tabuérniga 2019. It comes from a cool vineyard in the village of Labastida, planted with old tempranillo vines, some graciano, mazuelo, garnacha and garnacha blanca. The soil is shallow and calcareous. It’s a serious wine; somewhat austere and maybe a little closed, but underneath are red and wild berries waiting to burst; it’s full of fruit and the tannins are elegant. It’s a wine that invites you to meet again, so let’s remember it and follow. A wonderful evidence that a wine does not need to be oaky to be complex nor ageworthy.
La Bruja de Rozas is Comando G’s entry level wine. It’s a village wine from several plots around Rozas de Puerto Real, in the western part of Madrid province. The vineyards are located around 850-900 meters above sea level, and the vines are 50-80 years old. Cultivation is organical and according to biodynamic principles. The grapes are spontaneously fermented with a large proportion of whole clusters in open vessels. Long and gentle maceration for 30-40 days. Maturation partly in large foudres of 3-6,000 litres, used 500-litre barrels and a small proportion in concrete. Unfined and unfiltered.
La Bruja de Rozas 2020(Comando G)
Ruby red. Aromatic with mature red fruits (raspberry), flowers, spices (cinnamon), smoke and a mineral layer behind. Energetic, with young tannins, fresh acidity. It’s in a way juicy and concentrated at the same time.
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.
On thursday I was invited to lunch by my friend, natural wine maker Fabio Bartolomei, in his bodega. He is now making wines in the old cooperative of the town El Tiemblo, a building he shares with collegue Daniel Ramos.
Fabio to the right, with Sinta Moreso and Daniel Ramos
Daniel was there. So was natural wine maker Sinta Moreso from Tarragona. So was a group of young aspiring chefs from here and from San Sebastian, whom Fabio has been mentoring in their hobby winemaking projects. One of them, Fernando, will from next week join the crew of star restaurant Maaemo of Oslo, by the way. The lunch went on without a strict program, people came and left. But the lunch was eventually served, and it was delicious. There was some wine tasting, of Fabio’s wines -mostly originating from El Tiemblo (Sierra de Gredos), various projects of the participants, and someone even brought a magnum of Granada producer Barranco Oscuro’s wine called 1368 in the 2003 vintage. This was another proof that natural wines can age.
Before I left Fabio and I tasted a few more wines from his cellar. Fabio’s starting point is healthy grapes, free of chemicals. Experience and experimentation tells him how to proceed in making balanced wines that are true to their terroir and that suit Fabio’s taste.
A twenty years old natural wine from Barranco Oscuro of Granada
Fabio Bartolomei was born in Scotland to Italian immigrant parents. There he studied accounting and finance. In 2001 he decided to move to Spain to make wine. For many years he also worked as a translator. It was not until 2019 that he became a full time winemaker.
Fabio knew from the start that he didn’t want to use pesticides or additives. But he didn’t know that natural wine was an expression for that kind of wines. Since 2014 he has used the old cooperative building in El Tiemblo as his winery.
Here you can read a short piece about yesterday’s lunch in that bodega.
Alba is an orange wine made with albillo real grapes. The grape was fermented with native yeasts with the skins, then pressed and finished in stainless steel. It was transferred to clay amphoras and matured there for five months. Unclarified, unfiltered and without added sulphites.
Alba 2021(Vinos Ambiz)
Golden colour, hazy. Aromatic, with yellow apple, peach and flowers in front, then a layer of nuts with a touch of honey. Medium-bodied, luscious, drinkable and also quite long.
La Gracia is a small and cozy natural wine bar that opened in 2020, when the pandemic was at its height. It’s found in Murcia capital, Spain, in one of the narrow streets behind the city hall and the cathedral in the Santa Eulalia district. They work with artisan producers of wine, cheese and also beer and other products. The owners are Esperanza Pérez Andreo and Cristina Ramos Berna. They have strong ties with local and regional producers from whom they buy directly.
I was there twice at the end of the year, including New Year’s Eve. We sat on the “terrace” (i.e. the plaza behind the first street) near midnight, and then inside the bar around noon. We chose from the cold and the warm tapas menues, and from the by-the-glass wine selection, that counts on around 30 references.
Esperanza Pérez, responsible for the wine selection
Among the small dishes we chose was a “cured” cheese selection. The first one was a young and fresh, but oh so tasty, cheese from Cartagena, then a 3-4 months cured goat’s cheese soaked in red wine, then a 9 months cured cheese from San Javier called ‘El Abuelo’ (the grandfather) and finally a wonderfully complex cheese from a mountain between Cartagena and Mazarrón. The watermelon marmelade was from coastal San Javier.
The wine list contains established and new natural wine stars from Murcia and elsewhere in Spain. We started with Las Madres 2020(Punta de Flecha), a light skin-contact white from the Madrid area. The grape is malvar, and like many other wines from that variety it is low on acidity but rather textured. Amber coloured and slightly fizzy, it had a nice aroma of flowers and orange peel.
Las Madres with chicken brioche
Viña Enebro is rather well-known in Spanish natural wine circles, and you can read about a visit in Bullas here. El Yesar 2020 is a white wine made from the red grape forcallat. Hence it has a little blush of red. It’s round and tasty, and the aroma includes traces of citrus (clementine) and herbs.
At the second day I asked for whatever white wine and was served Doble Plaer 2020 from Vinyes Singulars (with collaboration from Toni Osorio) It turned to be a wonderful wine with a phenomenal acidity, almost electric. It has a good body too. Light orange in colour, and somewhat cloudy, with an aroma of citrus peel (lemon) and flowers over black tea. Long aftertaste where the citric notes linger. The grapes are malvasía de Sitges and parellada.
The two first reds were revelations from the Murcia region. Negrete 2021 from Negrete Blue is a monastrell/garnacha tintorera from no less than 1.373 meters of altitude in the Bullas denomination. It was a fresh and juicy, berry-dominated, young wine, with blackberry and blueberry in front.
Tinaha 2020 comes from the bodega of the same name. It’s found between Molino de Segura and Jumilla to the north of the regional capital. As the name implies they believe in ageing in clay (tinajas). The varieties are a local field blend, and so monastrell should be among the suspects. The wine had red berry notes, but was more dominated by a clay minerality with flowers, and had a juicy taste with a long aftertaste, and especially for the region, good acidity.
We tasted two reds from Castilla. Felipe el Caminero 2021(Inma Badillo) is a fresh tempranillo/ juan garcía/bruñal blend from Arribes del Duero, close to the Portuguese border (provinces Zamora and Salamanca). It’s a pure, very juicy and fruity wine with lots of berry character. La Payana 2020 (Cható Gañán) is completely different. Made from garnacha on granite soil in the Sierra de Gredos, it has a more serious air to it. It has some of the etheral character often associated with the Gredos garnachas, and some of the minerality behind the red fruits. The oak shows delicately on the palate.
Since I was back on New Year’s Eve I took the opportunity to round off with a sparkling wine. The choice fell on En Moviment A 2020 (Bàrbara Forés) from Terra Alta, Catalunya, made from the local morenillo grape. The sparkling rosé smells of peach and grapefruit. There is an acidic attack in the mouth, the wine is slim in the middle, but the citrus acidity strikes back and gives it a lift towards the end.
