Producer Profile - Raul Calle

Raúl is a forest engineer and teacher by vocation based in the easternmost point of the Sierra de Gredos region, in Sotillo de la Adrada. Here he came into contact with different grape varieties in experimental vineyards which piqued his curiosity about wine. As a result he started to study to become a sommelier on the side. His wife Laura joined him in his studies which brought them into contact with many winemakers and soon enough they decided to make their own wine. Their first vintage was in 2013 when they made wine from one plot of unpruned Grenache Noir at 1,000 metres altitude.

Now they have just under 4 hectares in production to make six wines in the tiny garage under their small house in Sotillo. The vines are worked organically, with some ploughing, some cover crops, no treatments other than occasional volcanic sulfur when needed in the unlikely event of humidity. The wines are made without additions, no sulfites, and bottled unfiltered from stainless steel, old barrel and amphora.

The wines are brilliant, quite different from those of their friend Fabio Bartolomei at Viños Ambiz (really, nothing could be like Fabio’s wines), nor like the fine, highly polished wines of Comando G. Raúl and Laura’s wines are clean, with rich, complex fruit, tons of energy, great balancing acidity, lots of life.