Wine is for young people
Three of them with their own project and one more recently incorporated to the very young family winery They are clear that their **future is wine**, although they like a different aspect of it.
Knowing how they think and how they have fallen into this liquid trap (I tell unbelievers that it is like that, almost like a trap in which you find yourself trapped without realizing it, although later you no longer want to get out) It can be used to see if this wine thing has a future or it will continue to be a thing for outdated old men or unrepentant snobs.
1. WOMAN ON WINE: JULIA CASADO (Murcia, 1984). The one on the ground, Bullas.
So from the ground that it is like an earthquake of telluric energy. Julia, Juliet for friends, she stepped on a vineyard at the age of 21, when she was studying music in the Palatinate.
Yes, because this woman, whose family has no connection with wine, is a professional cellist. And that, she tells her, she is serving her a lot when she goes to her vineyards in Bullas : I go to the vineyard and I see harmonies, beauty, silences… A beautiful background for develop your agricultural project.
Restless ass wherever they may be, she studied her, too, oenology , because at one point she opted more for wine than for music, and her final year project focused on monastrell, mediterranean grape by excellence.
She from the studies she left to do internships in wineries such as Vega Sicilia, in Ribera del Duero, or Fournier, in the Argentine Uco Valley.
Through those places, where she sometimes asked to see the vineyard and they would not let her, she knew that hers was not a “tie oenology” , as she calls it, and she took to the field: “You cannot be cultured without cultivating, without contact with the land ”, Says this farmer cellist, who has just built her own modular winery with railway sleepers and, in case anyone is interested, she is looking for interns for the harvest.
“You cannot be cultured without cultivating, without contact with the land”
She though she started to elaborate her first wine in the 2015 harvest in Jumilla , she moved to nearby (and more unknown) Bullas for the next vintage. And there she has installed herself, captivated by the freshness that she obtains in Monastrell wines. Now, with her incipient project, she has two estate reds on the market, The Land and the Cañada del Jinete , with the Mediterranean as the protagonist, although in the first wine it also includes a very scarce grape, I braved it
Her idea of the viticulture of the future is optimistic , she sees that those who return to the town and the countryside do so with a look of affection for tradition after having been educated in a cosmopolitan environment, having tried other things.
A phrase : “Wine is artistic, creative, like music. It connects with the territory, with who interprets it and, above all, it is shared. It catalyzes relationships between people.”
A wine: … or more. Among her fetish producers, Sílice, 4 Kilos, Eloi Cedo, Fernando Angulo… “I adore people who are crazy, who are not afraid”.
wine as art
2.**THINK GREEN: AGUSTÍ TORELLÓ ROCA (San Sadurní d’Anoia, 1990) Ànima Mundi **
It's a little dizzying to talk to someone with so much talent, consistency in her words and who was born in the 90s!
Torello Roca , oenologist qualified by the Rovira i Virgili University of Barcelona and son and grandson of winemakers, he seemed predestined since when he was little he accompanied his father everywhere or spent the summers working in the grandfather's family winery, Agusti Torello Mata.
“I am the eldest of three brothers and no other is dedicated to wine, but with my father's passion for this world, I either hated it or got into it,” he says.
What hooks this winemaker who has breathed since he was little is being able to relate to nature, the countryside, and having the opportunity to imprint on each harvest their interpretation of the year : “I am fascinated by being able to store a bottle, condense a landscape, create something that can make someone happy”.
A romantic vision that was developed in a breeding ground as unique as Sant Sadurní D'Anoia , cradle of cava, where who else, who less, is dedicated to wine.
Of course, some of his friends are as freaks as he is, but not all of them, and when they go to a restaurant “They tell me to choose the wine” , because he notices that fear they have of making a mistake when asking; but Agustí argues: “I don't understand music and that doesn't stop me from choosing a CD”, although he acknowledges that there is language in wine that is frightening.
Torelló Roca finished his studies and went to work in wineries abroad, in Argentina and in Champagne , here learning from Bruno Michel and understanding "the old viticultural world" and reaffirming an idea that he maintains when making his own wines: working with native grapes from the Penedès, an area where he has just launched Anima Mundi , a more personal project than the one he already set up with his father a few years ago, AT Roca, and where he makes magnificent sparkling wines and still wines from different areas near Sant Sadurní.
"Anima Mundi is becoming aware that nature, as it is best expressed, is when it flows"
Although he is just consolidating a promising career, the oenologist is clear that the future of wine is to produce fresh, accessible and drinkable products, "not catwalk" and that evoke the landscape. He is convinced that we will like the less manipulated wines, with soul, that hook us but (well!) are easy to drink . Eye, not lacking in complexity, but simple.
That's why in Anima Mundi he has devoted himself to making wines from the countryside (“I cannot conceive of wine without eco, biodynamic or integrated viticulture, but always more physical and less chemical”) with Penedès grapes and ancestral sparkling wines "because it is the method of minimal intervention" to produce this type of wine.
He is clear, and I can only agree when I listen to him, that "the defect in the wine is what prevents you from defining where it comes from, what variety it is made from and the vintage." There it is.
A phrase: "In your life you have about 45 opportunities to make the best wine, you should not waste any."
A wine : A true geek, he recommends Charles Dufour's champagnes and confesses that his favorite winery is Recaredo, from where he recommends the Serral del Vell cava. He also liked, he adds, O Tesouro, from Viña Somoza, albarello from Valdeorras.
3.**FEEL FREAK: DIEGO LOSADA (Ponferrada, 1984). Wineries and Vineyards La Senda **
This Ponferradian viticulturist defines himself as “ lonely and somewhat freak”, warrior as a child and dedicated to the field, and to his family, as an adult.
Poe and Lovecraft reader , he did not know until a little over ten years ago that wine was his thing. After studying chemistry and having passed through a couple of wineries, he thought of making his own wine “but not as a winemaker in a white coat,” he says, recalling those moments in the laboratory.
He first rented vineyards and with the money from the severance pay and unemployment he bought his first barrels in 2008. He opted for a little-known area in El Bierzo, near Las Médulas, where he loves to work in wild terrain and in solitude. And he started his life project, professionally and personally Well, then, he remembers, his first child was also on the way.
This is how Bodegas La Senda was born and, also, the first wine of a collection that now makes up five. That first one is called 1984, because it was when Diego was born, but also because he doesn't stray from that geek point that follows him like a cloud on the Pink Panther.
Diego Losada has it clear
Diego makes wine because of what he has that is creative, he is fascinated by that freedom that transforms grapes into a “biological soup” full of life. In addition, he bets on the natural current, that of dispensing with pesticides, insecticides and exercising control in the winery, but only that: control. “In the winery I do nothing, because if you know how to guide the procedure, you are not risking”.
Of course, he is very clear, like Julia, like Agustí, that not treating the vineyard does not mean not working it. On the contrary, cleanliness, he emphasizes, is fundamental (because when we talk about natural wines, the word "dirty" appears sooner or later in the conversation), and he bases everything, like a good chemist, on a set of organic processes, a war fratricide between yeasts, bacteria and sugars: "It is the law of the strongest" . He is not afraid to talk about chemistry: “Breathing is chemistry, and it is the most natural thing there is”.
Although he considers himself a lonely guy, while I talk to him he plays with his little one in the park after a day's work in the fields, and reflects on the wines that come : “Only the very big ones, or the different ones, will remain.”
He adds that young people, like the rest, are conditioned by the environment, a Big Brother who directs tastes, and he claims an alternative culture where you have more freedom to choose.
As a good freak, he is not too optimistic and sees a future where less wine is drunk and in concrete redoubts, although he opens a door to salvation if people like him, or his colleagues who embark on personal projects, they manage to get out of homogeneity and configure their own personality.
A phrase: "I don't want the diving suit in the vineyard"
A wine: Ribolla Gialla 2014, by Dario Princic (Venezia Giulia, Italy), a white that Diego defines as "pure perfume".
Only the big ones remain... or the different ones
4.**AT THE REINS: NATALIA GOLDING (Madrid, 1986). Thessaly Wineries **
It is one of the most recent additions of these young people to the world of wine, more than anything because the company that he runs, at the moment, together with his father in ** Arcos de la Frontera (Cádiz) **, has just released its first vintages.
But what she had always thrown at Golding, ever since she was little, was the horse. She is a professional horsewoman and she continues to compete, although that has not prevented her from graduating in Business Management.
After spending seasons completely devoted to equestrian, Natalia considered what to do with her life after the horse, a profession that she defines as "very hard, very peaky" and also very expensive to maintain.
While she was training to compete, her parents, Richard and Francesca Golding , had bought a farm in Arcos de la Frontera, initially, to continue with the breeding of horses and also dedicate it to family retirement.
But her father, a businessman who came to work in Spain in the 1980s and decided to stay in a country he loves, had the idea of planting a vineyard on his mind. And the Tesalia project appeared on the scene , for which Richard Golding hired the oenologist Ignacio de Miguel as adviser and which also has the collaboration of the Dutch Master of Wine Cees Van Casteren.
Golding threw the bait at Golding junior and she took it, although she, a purebred competitor, wanted to train in viticulture and oenology before joining the winery, which she was already taking her first steps in 2014: “It was difficult for me, especially the chemistry, but I got it out. I think deep down that competitive spirit came out of me.”
Natalia grew fond of it and, with De Miguel, she lost her fear of not having, of not developing, tasting skills, of differentiating one wine from another. "Ignacio reassured me, he told me that this is practice." Training, like the horse. And seeing that she learned was motivating her, she let go.
"I understand wine as enjoyment, as a total experience that is part of a whole, of a culture" and that is why she believes that it will not disappear. She is fascinated by that wine's ability to endure over the years and she knows that she cannot be misled, she has to continue training: “I am lucky to have been born in a house where wine has always been present” and she now she is studying in the WSET (Wine and Spirit Education Trust, a prestigious British organization that trains future Masters of Wine, among others).
With her, the wine has won a new adept, completely hooked and who has not lost the competitive spirit: “Tesalia is a project where I have put all the illusion. I want our wines to be among the best”.
A phrase: "Whenever I'm with my friends, I encourage them to insist on Esto wine, the more you taste it, the more you like it."
A wine: Dofí, from Álvaro Palacios, in Priorat, is “a wine that I love”, although “a couple of days ago I opened Arx (one of the wines he makes in Thessaly) and I was pleasantly surprised”.
The world of horses and wine, the passion of the Golding family