Pablo and Andrea of Magna Vides offer an alternative to the many oaky and heavy reds of Ribera del Duero. At their estate in La Aguilera (Burgos) they work eco-friendly in every possible way. This wine is made from garnacha grapes from 90 year old vines on sandy loam soils. They are fermented with stems and with local yeasts. It’s aged 12 months in used French barrels.
Alma de Cántaro Garnacha Tinta 2020(Magna Vides)
Dark cherry red. Fresh aroma of raspberry, wild strawberries, plums and herbs. Clear and focused garnacha fruit on the palate, it’s juicy with timid tannins, and a fresh and lively fruit. It’s carefully extracted and with no disturbing wood influence.
Magna Vides is located in La Aguilera, Ribera del Duero. Pablo Arranz and Andrea Sanz there offer a Ribera with a difference, in a region full of oaky wines with mature fruit. Their winery lies amidst organic vineyards, and brings out fresh and terroir-driven wines.
Vera Vides 2020(Magna Vides)
Made with grapes from vines that are more than 50 years old. 75% tinta del país (tempranillo), with garnacha, bobal, monastrell and the white albillo major. Careful maceration, grapes treated separately before blending and 10 months ageing in used French barrels. Filtered gently before bottling.
Deep red. Dark fruits (morello, blackberry), red fruits (raspberry), herbs. Good volume, fine tannins, a cool acidity. Fresh and balanced.
Magna Vides 2018(Magna Vides)
Made with tinta del país and a part of albillo mayor. Unique century-old vineyards located at three different sites in La Aguilera. The wine matures for about 14 months mainly in used barrels. It is filtered very gently.
Deep red with blue hint. Fresh aroma of dark fruits (blackberry, blackcurrant), red fruits, herbs, coffee. Good volume and concentration, firm tannins, good acidity, long aftertaste. It’s in a way powerful, but very balanced. Can age, but is surprisingly accessible.
Back in Murcia for Christmas celebrations, I never miss an opportunity to visit La Gracia natural wine bar near the cathedral (and the bull ring). Sommelier Esperanza tells that they will organize a natural wine fair on the 21st of January, called #vinosinresaca (that means wine without hangover), where some 25 of the most prestigious microbodegas from all over the country will participate. I really appreciate and support the initiative, though I can’t participate this first time. You should if you are near.
This evening I chose a plain Italian focaccia to go with all three wines, that were excellent. I opened with an aperitif, the sparkler Malaherba 2019 from Finca Parera, Penedès. It’s a rich and tasty wine with lots of body based on the xarel.lo vermell (red) grape, with yellow fruits aroma with wax and iodine.
The invitation to the upcoming fair and the Duarte bobal
Next was Duarte2022, a young bobal-tempranillo with fresh and dark berries and herbs, quite simple, but tasty. Good fruit throughout, and the tannins were quite firm and seemed young. Its maker Verónica Romero from Utiel-Requena, València is a comet in today’s natural wine sky. The wine is made with whole bunches in a variant of the carbonic maceration.
One of the more established natural wine producers in the Gredos mountains is Cható Gañán, where Kike Prados holds the reins. Navaciegos is a quite complex garnacha wine, purple coloured, aromas of red and dark fruits, also some dried herbs, and a layer of coffee. In the mouth it is full, quite dense and concentrated, with rounded tannins and good fruit. It’s made in Navahondilla, in a 0.35 hectares vineyard of 60 year old vines, at about 785 meters of altitude, with very degraded granite soil. A small part of the grapes are foottrodden and vatted with stems. The rest is destemmed. It was aged in French barrels of 500 liters at various ages.
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.
Garnacha was once the main variety in the historic vineyards of the lower Rioja. This wine is a nod to this tradition. We are in the northern slopes of the Sierra de Yerga. Javier Arizcuren here works with some of the few old vineyards, in the Gobelet conduction system.
The wine seeks to be an expression of the both the variety and of the place where it grows, therefore no foreign products are used in the process (except a small amount of sulfur). The wood is used exclusively for thewine stabilization process, without being excessively marked.
The grapes were manually harvested, with grape selection in the field. De-stemming. Alcoholic fermentation with wild yeasts at around 25ºC. Daily stirring and pumping over, then only stirring. Malolactic fermentation in steel. 8 months in 225-litre American oak barrels (6th year) and an additional 2 months in new French oak barrels.Total SO2 is 50 mg/litre.
Solo Garnacha 2016(Javier Arizcuren)
Dark cherry red. Youthful aroma of blackberry and cherry, a touch of coffee and sweet spice. Full in the mouth, rich with good weight and concentration, fine tannins, balanced acidity. Still young, and will improve.
Carlos Sánchez has a background from Sierra de Gredos (4 Monos). But he had early on fallen in love with the Sonsierra area of Rioja. And here he is. Since 2019 he has used the facilities of the former cooperative in Labastida.
This is a wine from a single plot (0,3 ha.) in San Vicente de la Sonsierra, on 100% garnacha. It’s spontaneously fermented with a high percentage of whole bunches, and kept in large oak barrels. Not clarified nor filtered. A modest production of 1.700 bottles.
Buradón Las Plegarias 2020(Carlos Sánchez)
Cherry red. Good ripe fruit, red plums, cherry, some strawberry, and a layer of dried herbs and lavender. Good volume, soft and fleshy, fine tannins, integrated acidity. It’s rooted in its landscape, yet has a noble air to it. Really good.
Last evening in Madrid: I haven’t been to the Asturianos restaurant since many years, when I had a tasting of Gredos wines with Belarmino Fernández. Belarmino’s family runs this restaurant in the Chamberí neighbourhood, and he is also in charge of Bodegas Canopy in Méntrida (Toledo province, at the foot of the Gredos mountains) together with his friend Alfonso Chacón.
I had celebrated and good wines like Esporão Reserva Branco 2021 (Alentejo) and Predicador 2020 (B. Romeo, Rioja), of which the restaurant is a distributor, and also Canopy’s varietal syrah Malpaso 2021. Still, when sommelier José Antonio offered me a tasting of their garnachas, this was unquestionably the highlight of the evening.
Belarfonso is put together from the names of the two owners of the bodega. The wine’s origin is in El Real de San Vicente where old garnacha grows in granite soil. It underwent a pre-fermentative cold fermentation, before a malalactic in oak, and spent a short time in French barrels of 500 and 700 liters.
Castillo de Belarfonso 2019(Bodegas Canopy)
Garnet red. Cherry, herbs, scrubland and a typical ethereal note. Fresh in the mouth, well-integrated tannins, some earth and a hint of coffee and black pepper.
Dominio del Águila, in the village La Aguilera, was founded in 2010 by Jorge Monzón and Isabel Rodero. Here, in the Burgos part of Ribera del Duero, they cultivate 30 hectares of vineyards, all organically.
Pícaro del Águila is made with vines between 35-60 years old, on sandy-clay soil, 900 metres above sea level in a north-facing vineyard. The main variety here is tempranillo with some albillo, bobal and garnacha. These varieties are co-fermented whole bunches in concrete lagares and aged in French oak. This is a nod to the past; a wine made with a blend, with a good balance between the fruit and wood and a vibrant acidity.
Pícaro del Águila 2020 (Dominio del Águila)
Ruby red. Expressive aroma of dark and red berries (blackberry, cherry), autumn leaves and spices. It’s in a way powerful, but the tannins are soft and rounded,, there are ripe fruits, and a fresh lingering acidity.
4 Monos are four friends who all had fallen in love with the garnachas and the freshness of the Sierra de Gredos mountain range. Javier García and Laura Robles are a married couple, and their friends David Velasco and David Moreno are the two other monkeys.
We are in the town and the Madrid subzone of San Martín de Valdeiglesias. Here is a high proportion of clay in the soils. The wine is made with garnacha from three different plots at 750 to 840 meters of altitude. In short, it’s made with whole bunches, fermentation with native yeasts and maturation in barrels for 15 months.
Tierra de Luna 2017(4 Monos)
Ruby red. Aroma of mature red fruits (raspberry), herbs (rosemary), earthy notes and a tiny sweet sensation (caramel). Medium-bodied with fine tannins, a taste of ripe cherries, good acidity.
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.
