Wine of the Week! 07/22/24

De Andrés Sisters La Viña del Bululú Garnacha

Normally $16.99 / Now on Sale for $13.96
100% Garnacha (Sierra de Gredos / Castilla y Leon V.d.T)

The Sierra de Gredos is the little wine region that isn’t. It sits west of Madrid, straddling three provinces – Toledo, Madrid, and Ávila — boasting specific grapes and wines that it’s known for. For reds, it’s Garnacha, and for whites, it’s Abillo Real. Still, it hasn’t been designated as its own DO, so you’ll find Sierra de Gredos wines listed under one of four other DOs — Cebreros, Mentrida, Vinos de Madrid, and Vinos de la Tierra de Castilla y León (the official designation of this wine).

It’s also not the most accessible or appealing grape growing area. The vineyards are small and either tucked between forests or planted on north facing slopes. Some of the land is filled with boulders left over from glaciers and, thus, is workable only by mule. Still, vintners have been coming here since the 1960s, searching for old vines and fighting the boulders to till the granite soil. Most recently, sisters Ruth and Ana de Andrés of De Andrés Sisters Wines are two of them.

Ruth (the oenologist) and Ana are interested in making unique wine from unique grapes. They make wine from Mediterranean grapes, make the Can Xa Cavas from Penedès, have plots in Ribero del Duero, and are drawn to Sierra de Gredos for its particularly intense expression of Garnacha (Grenache).

Their plots for the organic Garnacha that make up the Bululú are in Ávila — surrounded by pine trees, scrubs, and holm oaks. They are so very much high elevation vineyards — towering at 3300 feet above sea level, planted in mountainous granite soil. After fermentation, De Andrés Sisters age in concrete tanks for a year, adding minimal sulfur at bottling. The result is, at first, a very tight and intense Garnacha. However, as over time it opens up, it reveals a deep, rich floor underneath its acidic top.

Just when you thought you could be bored with Spanish Garnacha.