Chardonnay from Burgundy turns out to simply come from southern Spain!

Sierras de Málaga, Andalusia. An ‘official’ wine region since 2001. Yet still only a few wineries active: about forty in the DOP Málaga and Sierras de Málaga combined. One of the fourteen permitted white grapes in the latter: Chardonnay. Surely not… Chardonnay again. Often a variety used for an easy bargain. But Finca Descalzos Viejos does not preach that belief. With the Descalzos Viejos Chardonnay, they have an absolute masterpiece blanco Made. Fermented partly in stainless steel, partly in oak. Sur lie, bâtonnage. No wasted effort. Blind tasting: more Southern Burgundy than a flat and transparent South American. Popcorn. A caramel crunch. Salted butter. A sprinkle of spice. Precision acidity. The Descalzos Viejos Chardonnay 2015 has meanwhile become a beautifully aged wine. The comparison with a Meursault from Burgundy is easily made here.

Descalzos Viejos is the bodega of the Argentinian Flavio Salesi and Paco Retamero from Málaga.

They purchased the beautiful old monastery from 1505 in 1998 and subsequently spent five years restoring and converting it into a bodega. This little gem clings like a bird's nest to the steep slope of the hill upon which Ronda is built. When the monastery moved to the city, the monks continued to cultivate the gardens 'descalzos', or barefoot, hence the name. The vineyards are situated directly below the monastery in the beautiful 'Hoya del Tajo' valley. A significant microclimate exists here because it is always a few degrees warmer than the surrounding area, which benefits the ripening of the grapes. Just as refined and respectful of the past as the owners were in undertaking the renovation of the monastery, they also produce magnificent wines. Sipping a golden-yellow glass of white wine under the rustling shade of an old avocado tree in the monastery garden, you fittingly imagine yourself in higher spheres. A visit to this bodega stimulates all the senses. The region produces many excellent wines, but when it comes to the combination of taste and setting, no winemaker can match Descalzos Viejos.

In 2003, they had their first harvest. By 2005, Vicente Inat, an agricultural engineer and oenologist from Valencia, joined the team. Their 2006 vintage was almost too strong for consumption, yet the same wine won the gold medal at the World Wine Competition in Brussels in 2010, and the grand gold medal in 2011, the only Andalusian red wine to receive the prestigious award that year.

No fuss here.

While other producers would have wanted to benefit from such distinctions, Descalzos Viejos did the opposite. Despite becoming one of the best wineries in Ronda in a very short time, you will not find a quality mark or a certified organic label on their bottles. “We are not interested in accolades. We want our customers to recognize the quality of our wine by the taste, not by the labels,” explains Paco. Over the past 16 years, the architects and their small team of helpers have become experts in the art of winemaking, offering a fully organic product grown on small plots with harvesting, fermentation, and bottling done by hand.

If you have the chance to taste a Descalzos Viejos wine, consider yourself privileged. The wines are not for sale in supermarkets, nor are they sold at airports. Only a selection of wine merchants and restaurants carry the brand, as well as a few international distributors. Compared to the vast vineyards of the Rioja region, the estate is very small. With a total area of ​​15.5 hectares, 10 of which are planted with vines, almost all of their production can be called ‘limited edition’. While they produced 15,500 bottles of their regular DV wine in 2017, their special wines, such as the DV Rufina and DV Iusta wines, named after the convent’s patron saints, are produced in a limited quantity of only 2,000 bottles per year.