The belongings you love are the belongings you make investments time in.’ That’s the motto Daniel Gómez Jiménez-Landi and Fernando García have lived by and largely explains the evolution and success of Comando G, the venture they based in 2008.
The venture’s title is loaded with which means: G stands for Garnacha, Gredos and granite, the area’s terroir- and visually defining rock; it’s additionally a nod to the Spanish-language model of a Nineteen Seventies cartoon, Battle of the Planets, through which a staff of stylishly caped heroes known as G-Pressure (‘Comando G’) shield the Earth from alien threats.
That means is certainly key to understanding Comando G. There’s a programmatic, virtually ideological part to the venture. Landi and García’s motivations are deeply rooted within the socio-economic phenomena that led to the abandonment of previous vineyards in Gredos and the shortage of appreciation for the native grape and wines. Their shared accomplishment is – greater than a gradual output of a few of Europe’s most interesting Garnachas – the brand new mild shed on the distinctiveness of a area and of a misplaced viticultural heritage.
Gaining perspective
Having grown up in a village within the Méntrida DO area, surrounded by vines, Landi describes how ‘everybody was ashamed of Garnacha’. Growers, he says, had been paid ‘near nothing’ for the fruit, all of which was bought to the cooperatives: ‘Not one of the wines had been bottled; they had been bought bulk. This was unsustainable and most of the people had been merely compelled to promote the vines within the Nineteen Seventies. If you happen to’re made to really feel like a loser, how are you imagined to belief your native varieties, your traditions, your terroir?’
García and Landi met in 2005 whereas finding out oenology and viticulture at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. ‘We first bonded over music, shared passions,’ they each recall as we’re talking in early September when harvest is looming, maintaining García within the vineyards throughout many of the dialog. ‘We ended most days, after finding out, opening bottles, listening to music, speaking all evening. After which we travelled by Europe in a van.’ This discovery street journey reworked the way in which the pair interpreted their very own nation and area.
‘Whereas travelling, and in Burgundy particularly, we found an immense respect for all of the which means wine can have – wine as bottled panorama,’ Landi continues. ‘And that’s once we understood that we had to return to that Garnacha from the mountains, these previous forgotten vines.’
They noticed the potential not just for an underestimated grape selection but additionally for a forgotten terroir, prey to the curse of España vacía (‘empty Spain’). ‘We felt virtually an obligation to return to our roots and nurture the love for our background, traditions and panorama. A response in opposition to that lack of confidence and appreciation we had been raised with.’
Ploughing within the Pelito Lindo winery, Navahondilla. Credit score Salvador Arellano
Clear imaginative and prescient
The pair had been pragmatic when the venture began, maintaining it as a aspect gig – that drained fairly than generated revenue – whereas remaining targeted on different tasks. Landi shared the administration of his Méntrida-based household vineyard, Bodegas Jiménez-Landi – itself based following the restoration of deserted household vineyards – along with his cousin; García oversaw winemaking at Bodega Marañones in Pelayos de la Presa, 15km northeast. That interval of trepidation, improvisation and monetary recklessness proved formative, permitting them to deepen their information of Garnacha and of the Gredos terroir, and to fine-tune their shared philosophy. ‘We spent most afternoons driving round, in search of previous vineyards,’ says Landi. ‘This at a time when there was little if any understanding of the [region’s] totally different villages and valleys. However once we got here again, we had a transparent imaginative and prescient that this was the way in which we needed to method our personal panorama: deeply understanding terroir to provide village and winery wines that would convey a way of place.’
Onerous-won success
The primary wines launched by Comando G had been acquired with scepticism. ‘We’d have feedback like “It is a rosé, not a pink”, “That is too pale”,’ says Landi. ‘The type of wines favoured [in Spain] on the time had been outlined by focus – simply the alternative of the freshness and finesse we had been in search of.’ The problem that they confronted was due to this fact threefold: to return to market with an neglected selection (Garnacha) and a special type, beneath a producer title nobody was accustomed to. ‘We positively needed to swim in opposition to the present and kick down loads of doorways.’
Overseas, nonetheless, their wines had been acquired with shock and pleasure. At this time, they rub shoulders on importer and restaurant lists with among the most sought-after on the planet. Most are bought on allocation solely.
The popularity and business success ultimately demanded and allowed Landi and García to focus solely on Comando G; each have been solely devoted to the venture since 2021. A staff of 20 folks now work the 16.3ha that yield the fruit for Comando G’s wines – a real jeweller’s work through which no compromises are made and no corners are reduce.
All vineyards are painstakingly tended to by hand, ploughed by horse, soft-pruned [a relatively new technique pursued by Italian consultancy Simonit & Sirch aimed at minimising damage to vines by preserving sap flow] and farmed in response to a mixture of natural and biodynamic ideas.
Landi and García are demure when requested whether or not Comando G began a motion: ‘That’s for you [journalists and critics] to say. We’re simply grateful that we’re in a position to dwell from this land doing what we love. We’ve got simply labored actually laborious to make the wines we consider in,’ says Landi.
If I needed to reply the query, I might say that Comando G has certainly performed a pivotal position in Spanish wine – and within the appreciation of Garnacha – within the final decade and a half, and by a youthful era of wine lovers. On the crossroads of classicism and unpretentious cool, Landi and García have launched a brand new viewers – of each drinkers and collectors – to a finer aspect of Spanish wines. Their philosophical and private dedication to the venture (or is it a trigger?) – as seen within the lovely e book the pair printed in 2022, Calicata: Gredos como Terroir, edited by photographer Salvador Arellano – raised a special degree of consciousness and appreciation, oenological in addition to social and aesthetic.
Vines and granite rock in Rumbo al Norte winery. Credit score: Salvador Arellano
The wines of Comando G: The pyramid of Gredos
The vary produced by Comando G follows a Burgundian high quality pyramid, with a regional mix, La Bruja, on the backside.
La Bruja (initially launched as La Bruja Avería and later as La Bruja de Rozas) was Landi and García’s first wine, launched in 2008. For individuals who didn’t consider that Spanish Garnacha might be refined and funky, La Bruja compelled them to rethink their assumptions.
Three village wines – Villanueva, Navatalgordo, Rozas – sit above La Bruja and under a powerful assortment of paraje and single-parcel wines, amongst which the quasi-iconic El Tamboril, Las Iruelas and Rumbo al Norte.
Winemaking is constant throughout the vary. Hand harvest is adopted by a light-touch method within the cellar that minimises extraction and focuses on nuance. Infusion-like macerations are executed with submerged caps within the fermentation vessel fairly than remontage [drawing the fermenting wine from the bottom of a tank to pump it back in at the top, onto the cap]. Fermentations, reliant on pure yeasts solely, occur in open vats; ageing takes place in 500L-700L French oak barrels, foudres, cement and/or clay amphorae.
All wines are bottled unfined, unfiltered, with minimal addition of sulphites. ‘Roca y aire [‘stone and air’], that’s the 2 phrases that outline our wines,’ explains Landi. ‘Minerality and sense of place, on the one hand; and on the opposite complexity outlined by lightness and subtlety.’
Spreading the profit
One other essential contribution of Comando G has been the boldness and sense of group supplied to different winemakers, in Spain and past. The Fiesta de la Floración (‘Flowering Celebration’) the pair used to throw each spring supplied an uncommon and unforgettable assembly of like-minded producers, journalists and companions in crime (suppose Dirk Niepoort, Pepe Raventós, Pedro Parra amongst many others). Epic wines had been tasted, achievements celebrated, challenges debated, information shared. Landi carried out on guitar along with his band and Raventós as soon as introduced the organisers with an cute donkey, able to be beloved and to plough Comando G’s vineyards.
It showcased a selected mindset – of collaboration and pleasure within the grit – that opened a brand new sense of chance and legitimised the ambitions of aspiring producers. If Gredos is now on the forefront of Spanish trendy high-quality wines, synonymous with among the nation’s greatest Garnachas, it’s due to the main target and dedication of Landi, García and different like-minded producers within the area.
‘We’ve given our life to this ardour and this venture. Our foremost accomplishment is having the ability to dwell right here and dwell from this,’ says Landi. ‘[Despite all of the recognition] what makes us actually proud is how we’re serving to the area, an deserted panorama that now has an instance that may inspire folks to return to their villages and recuperate their previous vines.’
Commando G itself has entered a section of consolidation. ‘We inaugurated a brand new vineyard final yr [2023] and are making a farm following regenerative agriculture to recuperate ecosystems in a extra holistic approach,’ says Landi.
Are there plans for growth? ‘For us, being small is essential. We have to stay craftsmen of the vineyards,’ the pair concur, assertively. ‘It took us loads of effort to get right here – two chavales and not using a penny or a elaborate surname. It’s good to know that we’ve made this doable. Hopefully it will encourage others and convey life to different locations.’
Harvest time at Rumbo al Norte. Credit score: Salvador Arellano
