Alfredo Maestro - “El Marciano” Garnacha Castilla y Leon 2023 (15% ABV) 750ml

El Marciano = The Martian. A powerful Garnacha for CdP fans named for the numerous alien sightings in this remote mountainous region.

From a few small plots at 1,200m elevation (in the village of Navarredondilla) of 70-100+ year old vines planted in decomposed granite. The mountain range in Castilla y Leon north of Madrid, Gredos has an allure of interest regarding folklore alien sightings.

Alfredo Maestro, is a Rock Star natural/organic winemaker in Ribéro del Dúero

He understands that a wine must reflect where it comes from. He therefore eliminates the use of exogenous elements (i.e sulphur, acids, filters and stabilizers). According to Alfredo Maestro, he only really needs three elements to create a wine: the grapes, well-kept vines and healthy soils. 

His winemaking laboratory in Peñefiel, a Medieval wine making hamlet complete with an impressive Castle & unbreached citadel that Don Quioxte probably fought his ghosts at the gates of the moat right on the Ribéro del Dúero River.

“Wine made with only grapes, well-kept vineyards, and healthy land.” This is the mantra of Castellano winegrower Alfredo Maestro, a bright light amongst an abyss of industrially farmed, over-ripe, over-oaked, and over-manipulated wine-scape that is the Ribera del Duero these days.

Alfredo’s ascendance is unique to Alfredo. His family came to the winemaking town Peñafiel, Ribera del Duero from the Basque Country. Having grown up amongst the vines, Alfredo had a great interest in wine, and, through encouragement from friends, he started making his own wine in 1998. That same year he planted his first vineyard on the Rio Duraton near his home. From the beginning, he farmed organically. In the cellar, Alfredo was working literally “by-the-book”, teaching himself enology from a book and using every trick in it to make a “correct” Ribera del Duero wine: yeasts, acid, enzymes, tannins, color-enhancers, etc. were just some of the techniques utilized. In search of serious “purple-ness”, this is how many of the modern Ribera del Duero’s of today are produced. In the early 2000s Alfredo had a revelation. He questioned why as an organic farmer use chemicals to make the finished wine; he wanted to work as naturally in the winery as he did in the vineyard, in his words - "to better tell the story of the land." Alfredo began eliminating exogenous products, and in 2003 he began making wine without any additives whatsoever, including sulfur for all but a few wines. Alfredo still has a bottle of ‘Castrillo de Duero’ from that initial experimental vintage, and the wine is delicious, developing beautifully, deep, tarry, and tobacco – a great sign of things to come.

Over the past few years, Alfredo has been seeking out neglected parcels around the Ribera del Duero and the nearby Madrid to make wine from. He looks for old vines, poor limestone or granitic soils, and the requisite high elevation that gives freshness to wines grown on Spain’s great Meseta Central. Alfredo has accumulated 9 hectares and two small bodegas, one located in his native Peñafiel in the Ribera del Duero, where his father helps with the bodega work, and the other in the Navalcarnero area, southwest of Madrid. Alfredo makes no less than 11 cuvées from single vineyards and most notably from very rare old-vine parcels of Garnacha, Garnacha Tintorera, and Albillo located in the Ribera del Duero; these are grapes that were once embraced in the region but have fallen out of favor due to the region’s fascination with producing a 100% Tinto Fino wine. This prevailing mentality and fascination with spoof have worked to Alfredo’s benefit. He makes some of the most singular white and rosado wines in the region and his tintos are remarkable for their purity and elegance.

Alfredo’s goal is to make "easy wines with character imprinted with the earth and the vintage, authentic stories transmitted differently each year and not modified by the hand of the man in the cellar."

This exciting cuvée exhibits a sensual expression of Garnacha, big brooding and bold with perfumed aromas of cherry, rosemary. Aromatic, earthy, rustic yet generous, purple fruit with flavors of silky pomegranate and red currant. A simply delicious and balanced red wine with a long finish and very polished tannins. Decant for one hour and pair with a hearty meal.

Harvested the third week of September manually. The grape was crushed/trodden but not destemmed. Vinified in stainless steel tanks by plots with their own native yeasts. No correction or contribution was made. Daily pump-overs were carried out. 20 day maceration. Settlement and start of malolactic fermentation also in stainless steel tanks to then take the wine outside and, taking advantage of the rigors of winter, clarify and stabilize it naturally. It is racked to remove impurities and solid residues by decanting, allowing the wine to reach the bottling phase in optimal conditions of clarity and natural stabilization. However, during its life in the bottle, precipitates may arise due to its natural production.

10,000 bottles produced. 

varietal: 100% Garnacha

region: Peñalfiel, Castilla y léon, Ribéro del Dúero, Spain

style: crunchy red

farming/cellar: organic, biodynamic, hand picked, 30% whole cluster. Vinified in steel. unfiltered unfined no added so2