Sierra de Gredos

Sierra de Gredos

West of Madrid, straddling the provinces of Madrid, Ávila and Toledo, rises the granite massif of the Sierra de Gredos — today one of the regions European wine lovers talk about most excitedly.

Scattered across slopes between 600 and 1,200 metres are tiny old-vine plots, some of them no more than a few hundred vines apiece.

Granite weathered down to sand, and the cold mountain air, draw from Garnacha a pale, translucent colour and a taut line of acidity, and from the white Albillo Real a complexity that suggests honey and stone.

Cebreros, Méntrida, San Martín — administratively the massif is divided among three DOs, but the growers speak of it with one voice, as Gredos.

A Burgundian devotion to the single parcel, carrying the memory of the Spanish sun. Come and taste the frontier of mountain Garnacha, where the tension of altitude and the warmth of the fruit live side by side.