The Porróncast
A Wine, Spirits and Non-Alc. Podcast spotlighting the stories of people who share the Porrón.
Hosted by Ryan Looper.
The Porróncast
The Secret Soul of Mallorca: Wines of the Mediterranean Breeze from Mesquida Mora
Bàrbara Mesquida Mora is a biodynamic wine producer on the island of Mallorca.
Bàrbara Mesquida Mora shares the rich winemaking tradition of Mallorca and how her winery, Mesquida Mora, champions indigenous grape varieties on this stunning Mediterranean island. We explore beyond the beaches and tourist spots to discover the authentic culture and terroir that make Mallorcan wines unique.
The Porróncast is hosted and produced by Ryan Looper - @iamlooper
Follow us on IG: @demaisoneast @demaisonselections
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For deeper information on any producer featured on this episode click here and search producer name
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If you find a Porrón on the back label of a bottle, it is imported to the USA exclusively by the spectacular importer and team at De Maison Selections
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Original Music by @juliantamers
Welcome to the Poroncast.
Speaker 2:Welcoming Barbara Moschitomora all the way from Mallorca. I wish I was in Mallorca. She's going to talk about the terroir, the viticulture, the beautiful wines and culture of Mallorca, beyond all the tourist destinations, in Tennis. Stay tuned, barbara. Welcome. It's so good to see you. It's a pleasure. Tell me about Mallorca as an island, as a wine region.
Speaker 1:Mallorca is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, close to Barcelona, so it's a beautiful island which has been isolated for 100 years and let's say that during the past 100 has had a big evolution, of course. And wine has been there since the Romans Wow. And let's say that during the past 45 years, when I was born, it has had another big evolution as well. So I think Mallorca is becoming popular, not just a tourist destination. It's becoming popular for their wines too, and for being an island with a very rich gastronomy.
Speaker 2:It's true, I think that in the recent history, at least in New York, with Mallorcan wine, it hasn't had as much of a spotlight. It hasn't gotten a lot of attention. What has gotten a lot of attention is the tourism, maybe the tennis, a lot of pictures of people on vacation, basically. But what I've been saying and I lot of pictures of people on vacation, basically. But what I've been saying and I want to hear your impression on this is that Mallorca, you could go there for vacation every year for 10 years and maybe never realize what kind of an intense, deep viticultural history there is there.
Speaker 1:There is a lot of people who come to Mallorca and even local people who don't know how rich Mallorca is on wine aspect. A lot of people know Mallorca for holiday, for its beautiful beach, for its amazing landscape, etc. But sometimes people miss the inside of Mallorca, but sometimes people miss the inside Mallorca. So Palma, the most known beach, are the main spots, but what's going on inside? What happens in the deep, tiny Mallorca? What happens in Paleras, in Falenich, where I grow my vineyards, for example? So I always encourage people who visit us to not stay with just the most known things, try to go deeper and try to understand our way of being. For me it's like a Crollam which is Mallorca backwards and one of our wines. What I want to show is inside Mallorca, where I grew up, a lot of different soils, a lot of different indigenous varieties which have been there for a while. I mean, mallorca has so much to offer and it's true that we haven't been a popular island for wine, basically because before those 45 years ago we were speaking, wine was for own consumption, let's say energy, food, energy, grape and step by step it has become wine for pleasure, wine to show this piece of landscape into the bottle and step by step, our wines are becoming more popular on our wine restaurant lists and menus and step by step they are moving and we spread the word.
Speaker 1:We are some wineries that we are committed with exports and we are doing a big effort trying to be on new markets. Esquidamora we are 50% export, 50% local market. I think it's interesting because, of course, when you are a tiny island and you are a tiny winery as Mesquitamora, things have to be done step by step, with not a big marketing budget. But when you start seeing your wines placed in different wine lists on amazing places and people are committed about Mallorca and you see other really good friends making nice stuff and they are on the same menu, or another one and you say I wish I was there too, you know. Or another one and you say I wish I was there too, you know. So I think wine it's a nice way to show to the rest of the world how nice is Mallorca. And what I will ask is then when people visit us, they try to understand our way of being.
Speaker 2:That is so beautifully put.
Speaker 2:They try to understand our way of being that is so beautifully put. I do feel like there's a bit of a secret still in Mallorca that hasn't quite been discovered in the wines and that, as we continue to tell the stories, that people see that these wines have a very, very specific character, have a very, very specific character At the table. I would say I find them universally really dynamic, because some of the reds go really well with fish and you have this kind of cross-dish feel with Mallorca that I can only imagine it's just going to grow and grow in importance. I can only imagine it's just going to grow and grow in importance. Years ago I can remember seeing only one producer of Mallorca on any wine list and now you see a little bit more.
Speaker 1:Now perhaps you see maximum four, four, five.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Not more than that, I would say, but a lot of wine is still remaining on the island because it's true that, due to the visitors we have wines there, they are much more easier to sell. Sure, and I would say that we are living in a moment in which local restaurants are adding more wines on their wine list. I mean, 20 years ago, when I started, it was very common to see on the wine list one wine from Mallorca and 10 wines from Rioja and 10 from Ribeirão do Iorque. Of course, they do really good stuff and they have a very long wine tradition, but on a normal world you should have a really nice menu, a lot of different listings, but you should have a very important listing on what you are doing. If I own a Mallorca restaurant, I would have the best tenprensals, the best five giros, the best gorgoyasas, and show to our visitors and show to local people what we have.
Speaker 2:I often make an analogy to where the Canary Islands were years ago with where Mallorca is today, in that people know a little bit about the wines and they know about the island. But you know now Canary Islands, you'll see it on a lot of wine lists and I predict that the same thing is going to happen with Mallorca because, again, the character there's such a full character with what the wines are, no matter which producer. I mean again, 10, 15 years ago you might see Anima Negra or something like that. It was very rare, it was like an offshoot, but now there's just so much quality, indigenous grapes, storytelling, people like you that are leading in farming, and I just see nothing but growth potential for Mallorca, in the US at least.
Speaker 1:I think Canary Island are a great example of how a region has done and hope. In Mallorca, we are able to do the same and be known for our indigenous grape varieties. Of course, my parents were the first planting Cabernet and Merlot 45 years ago.
Speaker 2:Is that true? They were the first. Yes, wow, yes, it is.
Speaker 1:So I'm the daughter of Cabernet, merlot, chardonnay, syrah, all those French varieties. I grew up with them and I feel really happy and I'm not complaining about that at all. So it's true that I think we are living the indigenous varieties moment and everybody is interested in what's going on and he asks what's Corocoyasa, what's Pramsal, what's Giraud? When you want to show your wines, I think you catch more attention when you speak about the Pramsal or a Giraud. But on the other side I would say that those Cabernet, chardonnay, etc.
Speaker 1:Planted so long time ago helped to do not abandon the vines, the old vines. So I think we have to be very thankful to all that stuff my parents and other growners at that time decided to plant Because, if not wine tradition in Mallorca, it has been completely lost. So I think very thankful. And I still use some Merlot, some Cabernet I still have and I'm not just removing vineyards for the pleasure of destroying, because this is a very important richness stuff we have. So I'm keeping them, I use them, I try to put them in my Zik Show wines and once in a time we remove them and we replant with indigenous varieties which, of course, they are amazing and they are really well adapted and I think we should look to varieties that can suffer and support the heat and these changes we're having and making us a little bit crazy.
Speaker 2:That is a perfect segue into my next questions, which are a lot of people probably don't even understand the appellations in Mallorca, some of the rules, and I was wondering if you could just paint a picture, because you started 20-ish years ago. Talk to us about. You have Playa Avant years ago Talk to us about.
Speaker 1:You have Playa Levant. Neither do I understand, you know, so it's difficult to explain. Let's say that Mallorca is a tiny island and we have especially two historical wine regions One which would be our area, let's say Poledas, falanich, manacor, the southest part of Mallorca, now known as Playa Levant, if you want. And then we have the Venezuelan area, down to the hills. Venezuela has been the first deal, and then we did Playa Levant. The main reason they did Playa Levant was because they wanted to put on the label Mallorca and, as you know, regulations are not easy, so they did a big appellation which covers almost all the islands. So from the beginning, this is not really properly well done, but we have to go back those 30 years ago and try to understand the global aspect. And now we have the two Dios plus Vida La Terra, which is under the appellation I'm producing all of our wines, which covers all the islands. Of course there are a lot of regulations, but I would say that the aim of it is that we can add on our label Mallorca name. So, for me, mallorca, what we should do in the near future is have a very clear vision where we want to go and how Mallorca wines should go in order. They have their own identity and for me, it's basically indigenous grape varieties, organic growing, focused on top quality wines and trying to bring this Mediterranean breeze into the bottle. And we have the best varieties to do that, because our indigenous varieties are offering what public wants today. What public wants today Low alcohol content, fruity, drinkable wines, long wines but full of freshness. So I think we have almost everything we need. Now we need the support consumer and to arrive to the support consumer, we need our right distribution and find the people who can help us to arrive where we want to be.
Speaker 1:But I think, despite we're living a crazy moment according to wine consumption, the world is not as easy at all. Mallorca has everything she needs to be a beautiful wine region and I would say that at that moment, it's not just about the Iceland, it's more about the winemakers. So I would say, even for me, it's a moment in which paying attention to Mallorca wines it's necessary because it's interesting. I would be based on A list of winemakers really committed with landscape preservation, with indigenous grapes, with organic growing, with projects that are done on their own. I mean that we live from wine and for wine, so there are not super big investments, which doesn't really take care a lot about what's going on. So I mean we are through people from the through Iceland, which is trying to do all her best.
Speaker 2:Preach. I mean that is just so well said. I think it's inspiring to hear. Just knowing a little bit, I have a picture in the US of where we are with Mallorcan wines. I mean, we have two Mallorcan producers which I think we might be the only ones in the national import game that have two Mallorcan producers, which speaks to our, you know, want to be ambassadors and want to be in the long game with something special. But I just think that that resonates so much to me because it reminds me of other regions 10, 20 years ago that I was lucky enough to have conversations like this about, before we get into your wines, and how your winery started, and some of the terroir, some of the more geeky aspects, deeper aspects. I just want to ask about the culture of Mallorca, because it's hard to tell from the Instagram what the culture of Mallorca is like. How would you describe it?
Speaker 1:First of all, let me say that a wine region can never deal up a developer with just one winery. So I think what the Maison has done it's very clever because you put on your portfolio two wineries, a small winery, Frank crafted wineries, family wineries, organic wineries from the two different regions. So I think both wines, both wineries can be on a menu because they really show how Mallorca is now and how Mallorca is going to be, Because I think the two wineries you have there we are really well committed in thinking about the future, our organic, indigenous growing, you know. So I think you are showing what Mallorca is, which is our culture. Let's say that Mallorca is an island in the Mediterranean Sea, so we are Mediterranean style. I would say that originally we are people very calm, not really open.
Speaker 1:My friends say that I'm not a true Mallorca person because I'm quite open, but we have been isolated for hundreds of years. I mean, the king from Catalonia came in 1229. There used to be an Arabic population. They had a war and Arabic population disappeared and Mallorca was refilled I don't know how to say the word, but with people originally from Catalonia. So this is the reason why we speak Catalan in Mallorca, Despite people sometimes say no, this is not the same language. Look, my university degree was in Catalan language. I know about the history, what it has been. We have been isolated for hundreds of years and the Catalan those people bring in Mallorca has developed on his own and we are speaking a dialect which is Mallorca, but it's exactly the same language. So I would say that we are really connected more to Barcelona, Catalonia area than with Sevilla. That's my humble point of view.
Speaker 1:But we have our own identity, which has grown during those years and years and years of isolation. So we have our own culture, we have our own songs, we have our own folklore, we have our own food which, of course, is based on vegetables and not a lot of meat, because in Mallorca we didn't have a lot of grass. We have our own architecture. So Mallorca it's super rich and during the past 50 years it's true that it has become a popular island and a lot of people came because it's a nice island to live, but at the same time, it offers work possibilities and the population now has grown a lot and we have now a lot of problems, An explosion of new population coming for their own opportunities.
Speaker 1:Look, I mean people want to come to Manhattan. Why? Because it's a nice place to be. You can have a lot of opportunities, a way of being. So in Mallorca we have another thing that people are interested in. So it's true that now we have a blend of different cultures, different points of view that are making things a little bit more rich and complex that they were 45 years ago or 50 when I was born. So it has some positive aspects and other ones that I do not like, but it's like life.
Speaker 2:Understood. I mean, complexity is the spice of life, so let's take a break, a quick break, and then we'll come back and talk about your winery, Terroir and the wines. You're listening to the Peroncast with Barbara Moschitomora from Mallorca and we're back. Tell me how your winery started.
Speaker 1:I come from a family who has been making wine for a while. I come from a family who has been making wine for a while. In fact, I always tell people that we started on 1945. My great-grandfather started on 1945. And this is true, but on my mom's side, we have long, long, long wine and grape tradition. Some days ago, I was just organizing some old stuff and even I found 100 years, even more papers with notes about the kilograms we were picking at home. Mesquite Amour is a recent winery. I founded it in 2012, because sometimes life is hard and despite, I come from a family winery. At some point we had our own Falcon Crest. It was the American movie from the 80s.
Speaker 1:You remind the California stuff, so we have our own. So we had to close the family winery and I said I want to continue in wine and thanks to my mom, I could do that because she allowed me to make a mortgage on her flat and I could use her vineyards. So Mesquita Mora for me, it's my life project, it's my life itself and I decided to brand using my two surnames because, despite the relationship, it's not as I would expect on the Mesquite side, I am how I am thanks to that, and you in the States, you know about that. You start something. It doesn't work, you restart, so you have a big culture on that. It doesn't happen in Europe. It looks like you have to be doing what all your other generations have done. So it's true that I'm doing what the previous generations were doing, but now I'm doing it on my own. So in 2012, I started a completely new project which is Mesquita Mora. As I said, for me it was very important to brand with using my both surnames, because Mesquita is the wine tradition. More is thanks to her, thanks to my mom, which I could do that brand with using my both surnames, because Mesquite is the wine tradition, more is thanks to her, thanks to my mom, which I could do. That and it's a pretty self done on this way. It's like when you arrive super late home and you open the fridge and you say, okay, what I'm going to do this evening for dinner, and you find a tomato, an onion and something else and you say, okay, I can use this tomato and its onion and I can make a salad, I can make a soup, I can make just a cream. I mean you can do a fill of stuff using those ingredients. So then you decide what to do. So my winery is like that, this filling.
Speaker 1:At some point it was tough and I say, okay, what can I do with my mom's vineyards? Which grape varieties I have, which soils I have? What kind of skills can I have With winemaking skills can I have and try to put all those pieces together and create a way of living producing the greatest wines I can. So this is how I started in 2012 with a floor and roof, with a trispal and a sutil, because trispal and sutil means floor and roof. Like when you rent an apartment, you are renting a floor and a roof, then inside is going to become a home, but the first steps is just floor and ceiling, you know. So this is what I did Floor and roof, trispal and sotil.
Speaker 1:And I started with almost 20 acres of vineyards, located between Polletas and Fell in each area. So two different areas, eight different plots, a lot of different soils and a huge amount of different varieties from those Cabernet, etc we were speaking before to old Cayettes with Ramsal Giros. We have been replanting, re-grafting on the top of Merlot, with new Gorgollas coming with other super interesting varieties we want to work with, and all of them grown on biodynamics. So I would say the two main aspects from Mesquite de Mora. It's a small family winery. Well, it ran for myself, working with our own vineyards with a super great team a small team and grown on biodynamics, because what I want to leave to the next coming generation are better soils that I found and much more biodiversity and more richness. So for me, when I go to bed, I want to have the feeling that I have done something nice for the environment and something nice for the next coming generation and, of course, really good wines.
Speaker 2:What is the terroir? Like I know, you have a varied terroir. Is there a way to describe?
Speaker 1:A lot of people think that Mallorca terroir it's all the same, it's a kind of rogue in the Mediterranean Sea. But this is not true. We have a lot of different soils going on, and in my case I work in polleras and in falenich. In falenich we have caille vermelha. Caille vermelha is this brown soil, very rich on iron but very poor in organic material, but very poor in organic material. It's a quite old soil, so the part you can grow is not that big, because then you have the rock. So this is a kind of soil which really goes well with Cagliate and it really goes well with our indigenous varieties that they want to produce. I mean, they like to be generous, you know. So when you have a so poor soil, the soil itself helps you.
Speaker 1:And on the other side, in Puebleras, we are more on the clay soils. We have a lot of carbonate calcium, a lot of white clay, we have some brown clay as well. But I would say that the six different plots we have surrounding polders five minutes driving each other all of them are different one to the other. So because, for example, in San Porqué, in Smolí de San Porqué, when we host our pop-up events in summertime, we are open to public with previous reservation, etc. We have white clay soil, super clay, super white, a lot of carbonate. But if you move a little bit to Escamide Falenich, from where the biggest part of Pramsal comes from, to produce Acrollam, it's brown clay. It would be a transition between the Calvermey and the clay soils for the latest, and if we go to the Monastrey from the winery, it's, I mean, an inverse soil. I would say we have snails 16 centimeters down. Why? Because it was erosion from a tiny mountain and all the soil has gone there.
Speaker 2:So then, that makes sense.
Speaker 1:As I said at some point, it's like a jigsaw trying to put all the pieces together according varieties and soils.
Speaker 2:Let's walk through your wines and describe the Synchronia to all the way through. If you can, I'd like to just hear your take on them.
Speaker 1:So Synchronia Ranch, it's our landscape wine. Even on the label you have a boat for the white and a lighthouse for the red. A boat it's important to sail, explore, discover. When you travel, you always know something about the place you are visiting, but you know something new about you. So for me it's very important to have a little boat, even I mean I do not have a boat, but I mean have a boat in your mind to sail and explore. And this is what we have on the white label and on the red one we have a lighthouse, because for me it's very important to know from where I'm coming, be thankful about all my past and think on where I want to go. So this is important. A lighthouse has all my past and think of where I want to go. So this is important. A lighthouse has always been important in a harbor. This is the direction we go straight, and both images are done with tiny little pieces of paper like a collage, because at the end, what I'm trying to do is put all these pieces of our landscape is put all these pieces of our landscape.
Speaker 1:So if somebody wants to taste how the deep Mallorca tastes, it's synchronia time. Synchronia time means you are going to find, for both white and red, refreshing wines, deep wines, salty wines, made with a blend of different varieties. In synchronia, white, it's Pramsal, Giraud and Chardonnay, this old Chardonnay my parents planted 45 years ago. But don't expect a buttery, fully-bodied Chardonnay, because this is not at all. It's refreshing, it's vibrant, it's pure. We have this Pramsal and Giro going together, so it's a blend of the three varieties and at the end it's always this kind of saltiness, the feeling of the salty terroir, you know, and the breeze of the Mediterranean Sea. And for the red wine, it's a super big blend using Callet, manto, negro, gorgollasa, monastrey, marlowe, you know. So it's always the feeling of being on a terrace having a glass of wine, refreshing, that you can pair with fruit or not, but always vibrant. We do not have super top acidities, so they make very drinkable wines. So, synchronia, white and Red, it would be that, Two slices of our landscapes, and then we would jump to Acrolam. Acrolam White, acrolam means Mallorca, backwards, because this is the Mallorca I want to show and we have been speaking for a while. And it's a blend using Pramsal and Giraud Pramsal. We work with skin contact fermentation, we work with directly pressed bunches and we do a carbonic maceration as well. So we work the same variety on three ways, like we were saying before, when you go to the fridge and you find a tomato, and you can do it on several different ways. So we do that for Pramsal, because I think each fermentation shows you something and adds something to our wine. And then Giro, it's directly pressed, so it's always a deeper color. We have a skin context, so it's a little bit orange wine and it's a wine that ages really well.
Speaker 1:I have had the chance to taste a bottle two days ago in Detroit 2019. And I was so happy to have this chance. For me, acrollami, it's a very, very gastronomic wine with a very beautiful label a woman who plows into the sea and doesn't take care about the waves, and with a mandala which reminds that every year we should have a spring, a winter, an autumn, etc. And what we are looking for is for the circle in life. And then we have Trispal and Sotil the floor and the roof. Trispal, cabernet, syrah, cagliat but it's 60 Cagliat, 20 Cabernet, 20 Syrah from those old vines. And Sotil it's the roof, pure Cagliat from 70 years old vines.
Speaker 2:Incredible. Finishing up, I'd like to just get a feel on the personification, maybe, of a couple grapes, because people don't know what these grapes are. And if you had to describe Premsal, giro, cayet, gorgoyosa, manto Negro, could you just run through and give a quick take on these, since many people have never heard of them?
Speaker 1:Indigenous grape varieties are not easy at all. So normally they have big bunches big grains and it's a challenge to work with. I mean it's much easier to work with Chardonnay or with a Cabernet promised challenge to work with. I mean it's much easier to work with Chardonnay or with a Cabernet Promised. But all those grape varieties, what they need it's a very being pure on farming and know what you are, what you really want to do. I mean, when you are focused on top quality wines, the first thing you have to do is decreasing the half the production of those varieties because, as they want to produce, so with green cover crop, with a short pruning, um, you will help them to be a little bit. You know, I have to say that, avoid that they.
Speaker 1:They produce a massive quantity and sometimes I say it doesn't look so beautiful. They are not really beautiful grapes, but they are ours and we love them. So for me, premsal is going to give you more white taste, white fruit, pear, apple, etc. And Giro would give you more like peach, apricot, etc. We have to take care about Giro because he wants to rip very fast, so we have to take a little bit of care. Manto Negro I'm sure that one day Tomeu from Canberra will come and explain more about. And Gorgolla, it's a variety that sometimes we have a lot of production. Sometimes it's super irregular after the blossoming wheel was always have problems, but for me it's very, very interesting. It has a kind of rusticity that makes it nice. And Cagliotti is so smooth, so delicate, that sometimes we say it's our Pinot Noir, but it's our Cagliotti.
Speaker 2:That's so beautiful. Thank you so much for your time. You are such a dynamic person and such a great storyteller and I just really am thankful. Thanks, it's a pleasure to share with you. Was produced by yours truly. Theme music by the Julian Tamers. Special thanks to today's guests, the teams at Demaison East and Demaison Selections and all of the growers in the Demaison portfolio. Remember, if you turn the bottle around, you find the Perron. It's Demaison and if you have a Perron at a party, you should really share that thing. Quit hogging it. Okay, pass the Perron. If you Peron party, you should really share that thing. Quit hogging it. Okay, pass the Peron. If you like the podcast, you want to find it on one of the platforms. Just search the Peroncast, hit, follow. We got lots more to come. We're also on the Instagram at the Peroncast. Look forward to sharing some more with you soon. Thanks,
