Comando G "LAS IRUELAS Navarrevisca Vino de la Tierra de Castilla y Leon 2022 (PLEASE CONTACT US FOR AVAIBILITY)

Comando G. Daniel Landi, Fernando Garcia, Sierra de Gredos, Madrid

Citing the world’s greatest Grenache – Château Rayas – as their inspiration, Dani Gomez Jiménez-Landi and Fernando García of Comando G are producing some of Spain’s most sought-after and finessed wines.

Growing up locally, Dani and Fernando forged a friendship while studying viticulture at the University of Madrid. They launched Comando G in 2008 as a result of their mutual passion for indigenous old vines and to demonstrate the region’s potential beyond its reputation for bulk-wine in the 1970s.

Reviving abandoned, high-altitude vineyards in the Gredos Mountains west of Madrid, the pair work 10ha of Garnacha and Albillo by hand and with the aid of horses. Skilful biodynamic farming combined with warm, sunny days and cool nights results in perfectly ripe, healthy fruit balanced by fresh acidity.

Fermented with native yeasts in open-top casks and matured in a combination of oak barrels, foudres, and clay amphorae, Comando G produce eight red cuvées structured around Burgundy’s cru system.

Offering a beautiful balance between generosity and restraint, the portfolio starts with the exceptional value ‘La Bruja’ at ‘village’ level, moving up to 1er Crus ‘Las Rozas’ and ‘La Brena’, and six ‘Grand Cru’ single vineyards: ‘El Reventon’, ‘Las Iruelas’, ‘Tumba del Rey Moro’, ‘Las Umbrías’, ‘El Tamboril’, and ‘Rumbo al Norte’. Aged under flor, ‘Camino del Pilar’ is a spellbinding sherry-like Albillo tasting of nuts and pears.

Las Iruelas is from the village of El Tiemblo. The 1-ha vineyard, planted in 1963, is 1010 metres above sea level, facing east and the head-pruned vines have their feet in a mixed and sandy terroir of granite, slate, schist and quartz with patches of clay, the most complex soil that Dani and Fer work in the Sierra de Gredos. Las Iruelas is an apparently more muscular Garnacha due to this unique terroir with aromatics that are more Rhone-like in personality. The same delineated mineral structure that one associates with the Gredos, but more dark fruit and bass-line character than the other wines.

Biodynamic