Organic. Sometimes, it’s good to let the winegrower do the talking. Here’s Marc Isart: “So many wines are made just for impact, but you can only drink one glass of them. My goal is to produce grower wines. Wines that can be drunk daily. Wines that are more savoury than sweet. Wines where it is hard to stop drinking.”
Now simply labelled La Maldición (the wine was previously called Tinto de Valdilecha), this great-value red is drawn from organically farmed vines spread across three villages in the Arganda subzone of the Vinos de Madrid D.O.: Chinchón, Belmonte de Tajo and Colmenar de Oreja. All the vineyards lie 700-800 metres above sea level, benefiting from the large diurnal shifts common to the area. As you travel west from the San Martín de Valdeiglesias subzone, granitic soils give way to clay and limestone, with several of the Isart vineyards stained red by the high ironstone content.
This is a blend of 80% mature-vine Tempranillo with the local white grape Malvar making up the balance. The varieties co-ferment with natural yeasts, then the wine spends two weeks on skins before aging in various vessels: amphora, cement and stainless-steel tanks.
Despite the name of the wine, which translates to ‘the curse’, there is nothing jinxed about this wine: it offers bags of the classic red cola fruit of Tempranillo, as well as inky complexity, refreshing acidity and a kiss of vibrant tannin. A delicious, generous, high-grown country red—and a real bargain, as always.