La Maldición Vinos de Madrid Malvar de Valdilecha 2020 (6 Bottles) Madrid, Spain

by Fine Wine Cellars

$190.00 GST Included

AUSTRALIA WIDE SHIPPING INCLUDED

First produced in 2013, this idiosyncratic, pulpy, saline white is made from Spain’s indigenous Malvar grape. The fruit is drawn from a tiny, 0.44-hectare plot of old, bush vines rooted in the chalky clay soils of Valdilecha in the Madrid mountains, some 730 metres above sea level. Both here and at Bernabeleva, Isart plays a key role in the resuscitation of this variety.

Organic/biodynamic cultivation, meagre yields and old school (very old school!) fermentation with skins and stalks for 50 days are the keys to this delicious, fascinating and very fairly priced white. Aging that included crushed skins and stalks was the traditional way that Spanish farmers made their wines and this just works with Malvar. Following pressing, the maturation occurred in old 300-litre casks.

The result is another super-complex, deeply coloured, fleshy-textured release, with ripe nectarine, pear, apple and almond notes. It’s skinsy, and there is some grip, but it’s very fine and the wine is super clean and pure. It’s a wine loaded with charisma, texture and freshness and is so easy to drink! It also gives us a little glimpse into the deep history of this part of Spain.

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Description

About La Maldición

La Maldician translates as the curse’ and is named after the daily grind that this region’s historical workers faced getting to and making a living off the remote, high-altitude, rocky vineyards east of Madrid. There is nothing jinxed about the wine however, which offers bags of pure, fleshy, floral-tinged, cherry/cola fruit, lined with wispy tannins and refreshing acidity. A delicious, high-grown yet generous country red and an absolute bargain as always.

When he’s not weaving his magic at Bernabeleva, Marc Isart—with his wife Carmen Pérez— tends to his small family estate, 120 kilometres away in the hills above Madrid at Arganda del Rey. We’re still in Vinos de Madrid country, with the high altitude vineyards situated within the granitic mountain chain that borders Madrid. Despite sharing a DO however, the oftendistant subzones scattered throughout these mountains can be very different. In Arganda del Rey, the granitic sands of the San Martín subzone (where Bernabeleva is based) give way to clay and limestone topsoils. With this change in soils, the varietals are typically different as well. At Bernabeleva, Isart works with old-vine Garnacha and Albillo, while at La Maldición, it’s old-vine Tempranillo for the red and Malvar, a local indigenous white variety, for the white.

Isart’s old, low-yielding bush vines lie around the small village of Valdilecha, on an estate Isart has named Maldición, or ‘the curse’. Unsurprisingly the wines are very different to those Isart crafts at Bernabeleva in the Sierra de Gredos. But, applied here, Isart’s organic viticulture, pick-on-freshness, and natural yeast, lo-fi regime still result in wines that are as juicy and fresh as they are delicious. Although, they are certainly more straight-shooting and thirst-quenching in style (a reality reflected in their pricing).

Fine Wine Cellars

On the one hand, our role as a merchant of all things wine & spirits could not be simpler. We aim to source the most delicious, the most authentic, and the highest quality products possible from Australia and around the world in order to offer them to our clients. We live or die by how well we perform this task. Of course things are rarely as simple or as easy as they seem. Hunting for wines & spirits is no different. Apart from the months spent travelling, countless days and evenings spent tasting and the outrageous wine expenditure in the name of ‘research’, sourcing quality wine and spirits requires expertise and experience. Understanding the potential of a producer and their products is much more than just a slurp and a spit.