Daniel Jiménez-Landi, Las Uvas de la Ira
MENTRIDA
Garnacha – and Grenache – is justly famous for being able to turn on that gushing stream of rich fruitiness and produce wines of epic scale and depth in the driest, dustiest, hottest and windiest conditions, from Châteauneufdu-Pape to the Barossa. But in recent years, an increasing number of winemakers have been focusing on its ability to create something altogether more subtle, slinky and pretty – a style that is neatly summed up by the phrase ‘Pinot Noir of the south’.
In Spain, the undisputed king of this new Burgundian style of Garnacha is Daniel Jiménez-Landi. Having started his winemaking career at the family firm in Méntrida, JiménezLandi branched out on his own in the 2010s. The wines he made under his own eponymous label and as part of Comando G – his collaboration with fellow winemaker
Fernando García – have been instrumental in raising the profile of the Gredos region.
Currently not an official DO, Gredos follows the mountain range of the same name across a series of valleys and takes in three regions (Vino de la Tierra de Castilla, DO Vinos de Madrid and DO Méntrida) and a patchwork of high-altitude, old Garnacha vines, many of them abandoned (or merely producing rustic table wines) until recently. Landi himself works a fragmented 7ha of 60- to 80-year-old vines to produce his gloriously ethereal wines, all herb, earth and silky, nimble tannin. Daniel Jiménez- Landi, Las Uvas de la Ira, Méntrida, Sierra de Gredos 2017 92 £ 26 Corks, Indigo Wine
The name translates as ‘ the grapes of wrath’, but they produce something wildly beautiful here, with a windswept mix of dried earthiness and vermouthlike bitterness to go with the Pinot-esque (or lighter northern Rhône Syrah-like) feel, red fruit and cut citrus peel. Organic. Drink 2020-2025 Alc 14.5%