MENDALL
Jose Maria 2020
Catalonia, Spain
Mostly Tempranillo, with the balance being a mix of Garnacha, Viognier, Marselan and Muscat from twenty year old vines in El Pinell de Brai. The grapes were destemmed and macerated on the skins for eight days and fermented in amphorae, before a short ageing in vats. This is incredibly aromatic, with a cascade of black fruits and fistfuls of wildflowers, while the palate offers plenty of freshness for a wine of such intensity.
Grenache, Viognier, Marselan, Muscat
ABOUT THE PRODUCER
The Mendall cellar is based in El Pinell de Brai, a hot, dusty little town which looks like something out of a Spaghetti Western and serves as the unlikely ground zero of Catalunya’s lively wine scene.
A pioneer who has been influential in inspiring others in the area to return to their winemaking roots, Laureano Serres Montagut was also there the night the Brutal Wine Corporation was founded and is an organiser of one of Europe’s most talked-about wine fairs, H2O Vegetal. A legendary figure in Catalan wine, Laure has a spirit, sense of community and love of life that are as legendary as they are infectious.
Laureano was working as a computer programmer in Madrid when he decided a change of scenery was necessary and returned to his hometown to head the local winemaking cooperative. A couple of years later he set off on his own, bottling wine under the Mendall label from the 1999 harvest. He has worked organically from the very beginning, and since 2002, after forgetting to add any sulphur to the wines and enjoying the results, he has never looked back.
Having completed her winemaking studies, Laureano’s daughter Alícia now works side-by-side with her father, offering her own energy and vigour to the next chapter of Mendall. Today they farm five-and-a-half hectares of vineyards planted over limestone high in the Terra Alta, with the soils and elevation lending the wines a freshness and complexity not often found in this part of the world.
The wines are made in all manner of vessels in a tiny cellar in the town centre. Limited space dictates that the majority of wines are bottled young, brimming with an energy that comes from the family’s unique brand of winemaking, which combines creativity and restraint to offer original, vivid expressions of grape and place.