Southwest of Madrid, where the Sierra de Gredos drops into the Tiétar Valley, six plots of Garnacha cling to granitic soils at 850 meters. The vines are over 70 years old. The place is called El Real de San Vicente, and it produces a style of Garnacha that has nothing to do with the heavy, alcoholic wines that gave the grape a bad name.

Vitícola Mentridana was built around these vineyards by Dani Landi, one of the architects of the modern Gredos movement, and his childhood friend Curro Bareño, who grew up in this landscape and now makes the wines. Curro came out of Galicia, where he spent years making some of the most precise natural wines in Spain at Fedellos do Couto. That precision is evident here.

The 2021 is a cool-vintage wine. Perfumed and structured, with violets, red plum, and dried strawberry, finishing with the chalky grip that comes from old roots in granite. It drinks like something that costs considerably more.