Vitícola Mentridana

The Sierra de Gredos is an area of rugged granite peaks, forests, and hilltop towns southwest of Madrid. The combination of high altitude, free-draining granitic soils, and a long growing season gives it a unique micro-climate for viticulture. Vines cling to scree-slopes like mountain goats, but many of the best sites, those most challenging to farm, were abandoned decades ago. But for a new generation of winemakers motivated by a back-to-the-land ethos, many of these vineyards would have been entirely lost. At the forefront of rediscovering the Gredos were Dani Landi and Fernando Garcia of Comando G. With a handful of other pioneering winemakers, they have defined a new style of Garnacha – one that is light in color but intensely flavored, elegant, and mineral-driven. After only a few decades, Dani and Fer have taken the Gredos from obscurity to one of the most relevant and exciting places in the winemaking world.

Curro Barreño, one-half of the genius behind the Galician project Fedellos, grew up in the Gredos and is a childhood friend of Dani. Over the years, they’ve shared many bottles of wine and similar outlook on winemaking. So when, in 20021, Dani decided to focus all his efforts on Comando G and the vineyards in the Alberche Valley that he shares with Fernando Garcia, he entrusted his friend Curro with his vineyards in the Tiétar Valley.

Dani Landi’s former vineyards, plus some from Curro’s family, are located in DO Méntrida, hence the name of this new endeavor, Vitícola Mentridana. Curro is building on Dani’s meticulous foundations, interpreting Dani’s vineyards through what he learned after years of making wines here and in Galicia. Dani is proud to be able to allow Curro to take stewardship of his vineyards, and Curro is happy to have come home to make wine in the land of his birth.
Currently, Curro makes three wines at Vitícola Mentridana. El Mentridano comes from Curro’s vines near the town of Méntrida. Located where the Alberche changes course from flowing southeast to the southwest before it eventually joins the Tagus, this is a landscape of sandy, granitic soils, meadows, and holm oaks. Mentridano, therefore, is a more Mediterranean expression of the Gredos. Still, it remains light on its feet under the care of Curro, who initially gained fame for his ethereal wines at Fedellos.

For Las Uvas de la Ira, the sourcing remains the same as when released under Dani Land’s name – six vineyard plots in the village of El Real de San Vicente. Totaling 6.9 hectares, these vineyards of Garnacha are all over 70 years-old and planted on poor granitic soils at 850 meters compared to Mentridano at 600 meters. The Tiétar Valley is a more extreme environment with significant variation in ripening times and expression, so Uvas de la Ira sees several different harvests and a more extended maceration than Mentridano.

Cantos del Diablo was Dani Landi’s top site in the Tiétar Valley, a 0.35-hectare plot of 70+ year-old vines near El Real de San Vicente. A combination of sparsely planted vines, exposure, climate, and the age of the vines means that yields here are naturally restricted. Cantos ripens late, making for a wine that shows the ethereal aromatics typical of Garnacha grown on sandy granitic soils combined with a density and finesse characteristic of Garnacha from the Gredos.

Curro is building on Dani’s meticulous foundations, interpreting the vineyards, and working with a light touch in the winery. He is happy to have come home to make wine in the area where he grew up and to see the evolution of wines, which are becoming modern classics, graceful wines we love to drink.