La Bruja de Rozas 2017
Sierra de Gredos, Spain

The Not So Little One - The Village Wine
SKIP your "value" the Pinot Noir/Bourgogne Red for the fall and get a case of this "Village Wine" made from old vines at 50-80 years from purchased fruit and from the Comando G vines, all 100% Gredos but accessible now from sandy soils and slightly lower altitudes!

92 Wine Advocate
"I tasted the 2017 La Bruja de Rozas from one of the most challenging vintages of recent times. The result is spectacular, but volumes are much lower. In this warmer & riper year, they also used a portion of the must without skins or stems to try to achieve a lighter wine with more freshness. It has the Rozas floral character, with a little more tannin, as I often see with warmer vintages. 35,000 bottles were produced in this vintage affected by hail, which also greatly affected this village."- Luis Gutierrez, Robert Parker Wine Advocate

APPELLATION: Vinos de Madrid

VARIETY: 100% Garnacha

AGE OF VINES: 50-80

FARMING: Practicing organic and biodynamic

SOIL: Sandy granite

ALTITUDE: 850 meters

FERMENTATION: Hand harvested, natural yeast fermentation in open vats, 40-60 day maceration

AGING: 9 months in 30-60HL oak vats

A short distance from Madrid, the rugged, weathered peaks of the Sierra de Gredos serve as a refreshingly cool retreat from the heat and the bustle of the capital. Ancient hilltop towns and cottages dot the tortured landscape of alpine meadows, tumbled boulders and thick scrub brush. Clustered around this rocky spine are several DOs most notably Mentrida and Viños de Madrid which are best known for producing reliably inexpensive and simple country wines to slake the thirst of the capital. But viticulture in Spain is ancient and tenacious, so the adventurous can also find vineyards planted in the most impossible places including rockfalls and natural amphitheaters high up in the most remote parts of the mountains.

Daniel Landi and Fernando Garcia, friends since college, found themselves working in the area bounded by the Sierra de Gredos: Dani at his family’s estate, Bodegas Jimenez-Landi and Fernando at Bodega Marañones. Drawn to the mountains and rumors of small, nearly inaccessible vineyard plots located high in the Sierra de Gredos, over time they began purchasing and leasing the best sites they could find, creating their own project, Comando G in 2008. Along with many of the new innovators in the Priorat, Dani and Fernando are redefining what was previously viewed as a workhorse variety, Garnacha, into something that can rival the elegance and finesse of Pinot in Burgundy or Syrah in Hermitage.