Teruel exists! Juanvi tells the wine story from a nearly forgotten place...

Discover how a region marked by a population decrease from the Spanish Civil War is being transformed into a new and exciting wine-growing area on the edge of viticulture through the personal project of Juanvi Alcañiz in his hometown of Rubielos de Mora in Teruel, the southernmost province within the historic and regal area of Aragón, Spain.

Through the incredibly rare Miguel de Arco grape, along with old-vine Garnacha and Tempranillo, this project, Juanvi Viticultor, is growing at one of the highest elevation points in Spain to bottle his three special mountain wines: Rubielos de Mora, Quercus, and a special single vineyard of ancient-vine Garnacha called La Vińa de Báguena.

Juanvi shares his unique and trailblazing journey, thoughtful vineyard work and winemaking strategies, all in pursuit of showcasing the terroir and altitude of the vineyards of his home area.

This episode is for anyone interested in the craft of a winemaker charting their own course while navigating the immense challenges to make exceptional wines that narrate the story of their place of origin.


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Click here for more on Juanvi Viticultor 

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Original Music by Julian Tamers - @juliantamers on IG and Tiktok

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to the Porong cast.

Speaker 2: 0:05

Welcome, juan V, all the way from Teruel. Teruel is Easte, yes and he's alive. Amazing New York's pretty nice. It's good to have you here, thank you Alright here we go. Juan V, welcome to New York. Oh my gosh, all the way from Teruel, welcome man. How you doing?

Speaker 1: 0:34

Hi, very well, I'm very happy to be here in New York. Is it your first time? It's my second time? It's your second time you came to the tasting last year, Exactly last year, Wow so how are you doing?

Speaker 2: 0:46

Last year, wow. So I want everyone to understand where your project is. So you make red wine in Spain, in a province called Teruel. Where is that?

Speaker 1: 1:02

Teruel is a province that is in the northeast of Spain, besides Catalonia. It's a very big province, but with a very low population. We call it in Spanish it's a rural area.

Speaker 2: 1:24

It's the same in English.

Speaker 1: 1:26

Where the people after the Civil War in the forest in Spain? Just they left the towns, the villages there and they moved to the big cities, mostly to Valencia or Barcelona, right, and after that just the small towns as mine, just they were almost abandoned. Just a few people living there.

Speaker 2: 1:52

How many people live in Rubielos de Mora right now?

Speaker 1: 1:58

In Rubielos it's 500 people, 500 people okay.

Speaker 2: 2:02

So half a block in New York population, something like that.

Speaker 1: 2:07

I guess that's more than these people is living here in a block.

Speaker 2: 2:13

And when you think of your area, you studied winemaking, you studied agriculture and agronomy and you've made wine. You still make wine in other places. When you have a history, what attracted you to start a project in your hometown and in your place?

Speaker 1: 2:34

I think that one-makers who are living this way of life as me. I think that all of us, we want to have our own project. If it's this project in your hometowns, it's better. But in my case, my hometown was not vineyards time ago, just a few for the families, for the feats of the families, but it was not a big crop there.

Speaker 2: 3:04

So essentially it was for local, like home consumption, home-made wine, essentially, with a little bit of vineyards, and the issue I'm imagining is that it's so high and so cold, exactly, and there's a frost pressure that may be back in the day, it wasn't a good idea to plant grapes and like a Broadway, yes, yes, it was like this.

Speaker 1: 3:32

You explained it well in the past. People always say that for the altitude and because my hometown is in the middle of the mountains is a very nice place, but it's a very high altitude, it's very, it's near or very close of the ski area. And then for the reason in the past nobody was planting vineyards because it was a dangerous crop there, for the frost, for the hail, storms and everything. After a study and I started to work in different parts of Spain and also around the world Okay, I work it in Chile, new Zealand, in Australia and inside Spain, I work it in the Mediterranean area and in Rivera del Duero I realized that in a lot of wineries they started to have a problem with the ripeness because the heat and the temperature it's going up, it was going up and now it's going up and for this reason, one makers are quite worried in some areas because the grapes start to be barnished, not ripening.

Speaker 2: 4:37

You were saying that there were, like uvas tostadas, essentially toasted grapes In a lot of what may have been some of the greatest places to grow grapes in the past.

Speaker 2: 4:51

they might start getting a little bit of warm or the viticulture has to change in these places and this is what attracted you to your project is that you're so high up and it's on the edge of viticulture and so you have mountain granache, which I think it's interesting you were saying this yesterday that a lot of people don't think of Spain as a mountainous country. They have this idea of the meseta right and the coast and the coast. Of course, you can forget the coast so beautiful, but there are a lot of mountains in Spain.

Speaker 1: 5:26

In the in in land, we have at least five different mountain range and beside this mountain range or in this mountain range, you can find a lot of appellations, a lot of appellations and a lot of vines vineyards. Then I decided to start my own project in 2009, just planting a few hectares in my hometown and at the beginning it was very difficult for the climate. But after I had my viticulture and started my viticulture in the area, I got the good way to do the right work in the vineyards and at this moment I think that in the wines, you can appreciate well that we are talking about real mountain wines, because the altitude is between 900 meters and 1100 meters I don't know in feats.

Speaker 2: 6:27

Yeah, we're over 3,000 feet in elevation, which you know we throw around these numbers all the time in the wine business and sometimes we just kind of toss them off. That is very high. I've only been in a few vineyards in my life at a thousand meters.

Speaker 1: 6:46

Yes, it's one. The vineyards are one of the highest in Spain, for sure, and we have covered all the vineyards by net, maybe for the storm, for the hairline stirrups, and we have a very big pressure for the animals because the vineyards are just the vineyards, or just my vineyards are in the middle of the mountains and no more crops around. For the reason the grapes are very attractive for different kinds of animals, like wine pigs and others. For this reason, we have, I don't know- Fences, they're fences, yeah.

Speaker 2: 7:25

So you have to basically enclose your vineyards so the animals most of them don't go in and just take the whole crop, essentially because they like to eat the grapes. Yes yes, yes, and I think just to paint a little bit further of a picture, what I'm imagining is, as you said, there aren't that many vineyards who would have planted there back in the day because it is very cold, but there are kind of these little postage stamps on the mountains. It's not a million hectare.

Speaker 1: 7:56

You know it's the opposite of that.

Speaker 2: 7:57

It's a tiny vineyard surrounded by fences and you also. The nets are just like they would do in Barolo and some other areas, where they just cover, so you reduce the hail pressure and you can keep your crop If something happens, which oftentimes it does.

Speaker 1: 8:15

Yes, but this is common in New Zealand for the birds in Argentina and Mendoza, for because they are very high too. In Italy, you're right, but not in Spain. Sometimes the vineyards in Spain, the viticulture or the growers in the past were people that were was very poor and they had no money to do these kinds of things. Now, of course, that many rich wineries can do it by, but it's for me that is very small winery. It's basic to do this because I need to save my crop.

Speaker 2: 8:50

Yeah, it's protective and you care about what you're doing. So obviously, to just give it all to nature, in a sense, you want to protect a little bit. Here and there you could be in deep trouble, especially in a place with so much hail pressure. You were saying that to have a growing cycle that's a little shorter is also key because for many obvious reasons, it's exposed to the frost part and et cetera.

Speaker 1: 9:16

It's very important in that kind of climate that the bats is as late as possible, because I think that the most dangerous time it's in at the beginning of May. Because, at the beginning of May. It's crucial.

Speaker 2: 9:35

Yes, get your English man Very good Spanish. What are the nearest appellations to where you are? Is it Calatayud? Is it like? What is the general appellation system? Look like where you are.

Speaker 1: 9:49

Yeah, the nearest appellation is Calatayud and then Valencia.

Speaker 2: 9:56

Valencia. How far of a drive is it to your place from Valencia? One hour and a half, so you're not far from the coast. No, no, no, we are not that far. And then to Barcelona, what's the drive like? It's four hours, four hours, right. So just so everyone can kind of triangulate where you are.

Speaker 1: 10:18

I'm from Calatayud, it's one hour and a half.

Speaker 2: 10:21

Cool. And so you planted Garnacha and Tempranillo, yes, and you did that because of the growing cycle and because you felt very comfortable. These would speak clearly about your terroir, where you are. What about you bought some older vineyards too?

Speaker 1: 10:41

Yes, I'm showing my personal project with a work in a big group winery that is in Calatayud that is called Bodega San Alejandro. Doing brands are Bodia or La Roca. I wanted to work there because it's the nearest place to my own project and then I'm working there for 12 years now as a head one maker, and in that time I had to discover or to find new vineyards just to feed the work big winery and in the area of Calatayud and surrounded there are a lot of all amazing vineyards. It's a very incredible appellation and some of these vineyards are out of the appellation because are in a different province. That's my case. No, that terroir is beside Zaragoza, but the appellations just take the vineyards in Zaragoza. Then there are a lot of vineyards very attractive in the high mountains, with a really black slate or a skis or quartsit, that are out of the appellation and they are in the province of Teruel.

Speaker 1: 12:04

I wanted during 2015, when I was starting my first wines, I realized that I need something, a vineyard, some emblematic vineyards, to fill my personal project, and then I started to find, to look for these kinds of vineyards, unfortunately. Fortunately, I found a few of them that were very impressive and I decided to buy it, and this is an history that I like to explain, because in Spain or around the world, it's very difficult to buy a non-vineyard because some of them are inside the appellation, are very famous appellation and they cost a lot of money. It was not my case. I had no money and but I found these vineyards and the growers were old people who are almost abandoning the vineyards and I had the chance to buy it for a normal price and I'm very happy for this, and I have five vectors that are in an area that is called Gilóca, that is, a town as Baguena, burbaguena and San Martín, and they are old wines, around between 40 and 75 years old.

Speaker 2: 13:33

Is this all garnacha.

Speaker 1: 13:35

There are garnacha and a local variety that is called Miguel de Arco.

Speaker 2: 13:41

Right, miguel de Arco, which. So we taste one of your, your bottlings, called Quercus, which has a Miguel de Arco in it, and I was shocked at how different the, how dynamic the wine was. And then to learn, I believe you said, that there are only 10 hectare of this local grape in the world and I don't know anyone, even Spain heads, who know this grape.

Speaker 1: 14:09

Yes, it's. You know that now in Spain there is a beautiful movement, young people just recovering all varieties and traditional and minority varieties, and in my place this local variety is Miguel de Arco. Also, the garnacha is coming from my area okay, from Aragon, but in this case, miguel de Arco, it's very uncommon variety. We have a register in Spain that you can find the hectares of all the vineyards that are in the country and I was checking this register and it was just 10 hectares of Miguel de Arco Incredible.

Speaker 1: 14:50

I'm very happy to work with this variety, but it's also a responsibility because I have no 100% wine, not now, not yet. Sorry, 100% Miguel de Arco. I will do it, but I will. I want to do it well, after studying how is aging, how is going the fruit, everything. And I'm working now in the viticulture of these plots trying to get the most beautiful fruit Miguel de Arco. Maybe in the, in a couple of years, someone find Miguel de Arco and it's the best and it's the first, but I I would like to do it well for this. I'm not in hurry.

Speaker 2: 15:34

That's, I think that's the sign of a really thoughtful winemaker is to not be in a rush and to really let a place and Something like this speak to you very clearly. It's, it's really. Your wines are very moving, man, because I think that Oftentimes high elevation we're talking about one of the highest elevations in all of Spain we're talking about got a nacha People automatically think of grade those, for instance. Yes, and I was shocked at Just how expressive and perfumed and beautiful and balanced all of your wines were from an area that I really had never thought of as a viticultural area. I knew it for maybe some Hamon or whatever, and I think it's. I think it's very exciting because it shows the, the cutting edge of Spain. We're very interested in that.

Speaker 2: 16:28

At de Maison, we, we work in Mallorca with some people that work with crazy local grapes, and all through Spain and France too. So you make three wines one. One little side note if someone's in Spain, your wines are called rubus yes, in the US it's called one V yes, we had a little bit of a trademark thing that happened, which is neither here nor there, but we had to make some shifts. So if you're in Spain and you see rubus, this is the project that one V is behind, and if you see one V in the US, it's, it's. They're the same wines. So currently in release. You have your village wine will be a demora, yes. You have Kerkus, yes, and you have the vina this the single vineyard bagana.

Speaker 1: 17:15

Yeah, exactly three wines, do you?

Speaker 2: 17:18

in terms of, if you had to explain it in very fast, which I'm sure you're getting used to the three wines, what makes them different from each other, how would you do?

Speaker 1: 17:28

that Okay then, first one my entry level is called Juan B Rubialos demora in the States and Is the. The sourcing, the grapes are hundred percent from a hometown. I planted the vineyards in 2008 and it's a wine that is aging in concrete tanks, but it's a. For me, it's a beautiful wine because it's clean, it's clear, it's very direct and it's sowing the terroir, but the altitude, more than the soil, that is very important. The altitude. The soil is very interesting also, but in that case, is the altitude marking the, the style of the wine? Then? Rubus Kerkus, it's a. It's a wine that I'm producing with all vines, with bus bus vines at between 40 and 75 years old. It's a blend. A Garnacha Miguel de Arco Is aging in big barrels for six months around. I really like to show the fruit and the brightness. For this reason, I like to sell the wines, not as young as possible, but I prefer to to sell my wines in the young style than in an aged style.

Speaker 2: 18:42

Sure like you're talking about a wine that has more, not this long elevage style. You're talking about something that you release and people can drink immediately.

Speaker 1: 18:52

Exactly Because I like the fruitness, the freshness, and I think that it's better to show the terroir For sure. Then my third wine is a single vineyard. As you said, it's the first old vineyard that I bought in 2016. It is an impressive place, an impressive plot. It's the highest plot in the area. It's especially big for this area because it's almost three hectares.

Speaker 2: 19:22

Oh really.

Speaker 1: 19:23

It's big and it's uncommon, because in the area for the steps and the mountains it's very difficult to find this kind of vineyard. This is an entire face of a mountain, not a mountain, a colina. Sure, it's a hill Then, but in that case we are having just 1,000 bottles in three hectares. The yield is very low because the plants are very old. This wine is deeper, of course, than the others. The fruit is fresh, but it's plenty of flavors like herbs and mungtine. It's unbelievable that the plot is the lower pH I ever seen in Garnet.

Speaker 2: 20:11

That's fascinating. Yeah, you were recounting to us that it isn't uncommon for a vine to have one bunch of grapes in this plot. Yes, yes, yes, which is? I think there's another thing, that again with the numbers you say three hectares, you say 1,000 liters.

Speaker 2: 20:32

Or so it's a fast thing to say, but I think it's funny that three hectares is a big vineyard. That's one for us. That's not a big vineyard. Also, I imagine it's their pathways leading to this vineyard. It's almost like taking a mountain walk and all of a sudden there's a vineyard there, and then to have something that's so low yielding that really every grape is so precious when this vineyard gives fruit in this way.

Speaker 1: 21:00

Like you have to think that in a lot of plants there are one bunch, but they have a lot of leaves working for one bunch. Then, of course, that the leaves, it's as the air for the plant. The leaves are feeding the bunch. Then, in this case, all the leaves are working for one bunch, for a few grapes. Then for this reason, I think that the fruits are fantastic.

Speaker 2: 21:31

Well, I can speak to the flavors being completely insane. On that, I think you do a little bit of whole cluster in the cellar and I was just. I think this is one of the most exciting cutting edge things happening that I've tasted recently, because you don't get the balance of freshness very often with garinaccia Exactly Only in the best, and some of the flavors that come through I normally associate with some of the most noble wines in the world. So I'm really thankful that we represent you in the US and I'm really thankful for the work you're doing. I also just appreciate you being on the podcast. Thank you very much, Juan V.

Speaker 1: 22:13

Thank you for having my wines Appreciate you.

Speaker 2: 22:20

Thanks for listening to the Furno Cast. I'm your host, ryan Looper. Today's episode was produced by yours truly, theme music by the Julian Tamers. Special thanks to today's guests, the teams at Dumezon East and Dumezon Selections and all of the growers in the Dumezon portfolio. Remember, if you turn the bottle around, you find the Perron, it's Dumezon, and if you have a Perron in a party, you should really share that thing. Quit hogging it. Ok, pass the Perron. If you like the podcast, you want to find it on one of the platforms, just search the Perron Cast, hit follow. We've got lots more to come. We're also on the Instagram at the Perron Cast. Look forward to sharing some more with you soon. Thanks, we'll see you in ten minutes.