ISMAEL GOZALO, THE GREEN KING

Organic, natural, bio, eco...green wines...of course, but if they were good wines at the same time...it would be better, right?

Rueda (Spain)...an ocean of mediocrity in which there are some hidden gems swimming between millions of liters of cheap and bad wines.

ISMAEL GOZALO, THE GREEN KING

Ismael Gozalo is the essential vigneron to understand the news of the wine natives of Spain. As they say, if he would not exist, we would have to invent him. No one like him had come so far in quality, diversity and research. Make many and very diverse wines, but now we will focus on their MicroBio Wines, his most radical wines, totally natural, where it gives free rein to all your concerns. Before referring to them we will give our opinion on the ideological context, the natural environment and its work system.

Currently organic, biodynamic, natural wines ... are fashionable, and have many followers who defend them staunchly. They also have many detractors who think that 90% of natural wines are lousy and undrinkable, and very possibly they are right, even if they forget that the same 90% of industrial wines are of similar quality. Ideologically we all defend wines and green foods (organic, eco, natural ...) And there is no going back. It is not about being in favor or against

natural wines; it is as simple as defending and drinking all those who, in addition to Green, be of great quality. And it is not easy. Today in Spain that a wine is organic it has very little influence on its final quality, since the demands are so tiny that almost anyone can be, although we recognize the commercial value, especially for amateurs of Central Europe that are fervent defenders of these labels. Be a biodynamic wine it is more difficult, since Demeter, a serious and demanding German company, has to audit what most biodynamic wines in Spain are from mouthpiece, to impress on visits and tastings. Being a natural wine is much more complex, since there is no regulation official, coexisting extraordinary wines with lousy wines, a real puzzle.

All of them theoretically ferment with native yeasts and do not add sulfur, but it does not demand anything about vineyards, varieties, yields, viticulture ... For me natural wines honest, pure, and high quality deserve great admiration, but today there are very few.

Ismael Gozalo was born in Nieva, province of Segovia, in 1971, and there he continues living, cultivating the 30 hectares of vineyards, all of the Verdejo variety, inherited from their ancestors, from their father, from their grandfather, from their great grandfather ..., a true family vineyard.

They are very small vineyards scattered among pine trees, very old, between 120 and 180 years old, prephyloxers, planted in free standing, in sandy soils, key so that phylloxera does not
could attack its appetizing roots. It has nothing to do with plantations of Verdejo that exist on the sides of the A6 Road as it passes through Rueda, prepared to produce methodically many kilos of grapes, which will then be bottled millions of bottles that International markets will pay € 1 / 1.5 per bottle. Currently the D.O. Rueda, despite its national image, based exclusively on marketing and inexperienced clients, is in a deep crisis, perhaps because of the mistake of betting for many more years for the amount that for the quality. However, there is currently a small group of wineries, insignificant in terms of total volume, which defend the land, diversity and quality.

Ismael Gozalo, of international rustic character, and vitally wild, prefers not to belong to side. He rolls and bottles his wines for free, just as he likes to work and live.

For Ismael Gozalo wines to be as they are, it has been essential to conjunction of two elements. On the one hand some very old vineyards, with clones that are authentic genetic treasures, totally fused with the soil, strains with their own history, they do not speak but they transmit all their wisdom in each grape grain. And on the other hand the character of Ismael, young, brave, global, who knows all the wines of the world, and wants get with his vineyard to the fullest; that permanent search, not so much of quality, a subjective and even debatable concept, but of identity and diversity, for what it does, always from a strictly natural point of view and with absolute respect for the vineyard and the grape, many and very different elaborations to try to transmit all the purity, essence and energy of his vineyards.

Ismael Gozalo produces around 40,000 bottles per year, distributed between minus 25-30 different wines, including sparkling, white, rosé and red. And sells to other wineries an average of 100,000 kilos of verdejo. That is, he bottles only 25%, what best of the best, and sells 75%.

With these figures anyone can think that the goal is not is to make wines that all audiences like, not even a majority, but go aimed at all those who, in addition to living for and for wine, want to drink wines different, that have nothing to do with the usual ones, who can wake up in sensations that we had never experienced before. They are wines that require drink them calmly, and thinking, in your wine experience, in your own character, in your vital moment and in a thousand other things. I will not insist that each of its wines is a landscape and a bottled story, which it is, since it is such a used argument, and almost always without foundation, which has become a commercial ordinariness. That the different wines you like it or not, it's a secondary issue, it depends on your taste and your experience, but they are unique, very scarce, and therefore I think you should taste them all without exception.

Ismael Gozalo is a true independent vigneron, as there are many in France for several decades. For me it is at the height of Ganevat in the Jura, of Richard Leroy in the Loire or Marcel Deiss in Alsace, at the level of the best in the world. The term vigneron defines a job with total precision and attempts to translate it into Spanish have not succeeded, as has happened with terroir, another French term impossible to translate.

A vigneron is not a winegrower, since they are dedicated exclusively to cultivation of the vineyard, while the vigneron performs the whole process of its wine, from beginning to end, being a farmer, winegrower, winemaker and commercial, a concept of integral work without exception.

The winery is located in front of the church of San Esteban, in the small town segoviano de Nieva. From the first moment Ismael explains his interpretation of matters of so much controversy, and of such topicality, as oxidation and volatile. It uses a small vertical press, with very small yields of 250 liters of must for every 450 kilos of grapes, allowing a certain oxidation of the musts during pressing, such and as was traditionally done Ismael considers that “what rusts now can no longer oxidize after fermentation ”, and thus prevent subsequent premature oxidation, as it has occurred in the last 10-20 years with many white Burgundy, coinciding with the introduction of modern pneumatic presses. In a small loft there are microvinifications of early or late harvests, which are used as natural correctors, either for provide acidity or improve mouths and textures. And it is clear, “the volatile is one of my weapons preferred, in a late harvest you always lose freshness and what makes acidity pick up It is the volatile.”

You go down to the basement, which occupies part of the Monastery of El Parral of S.XII, and you never could imagine everything there. It's like traveling to the center of the earth in a few seconds. The energy of the place takes possession of you without you being able to do anything. And a dream begins between jars, amphorae, fudres, barrels, damajuanas ..., it seems that everything is in disarray, but in fact, everything flows with such precision that it becomes practically perfect. In some minutes all your ideas about the world of wine are shaken in your head, re-coupled with the energy of the almost millenary walls, and you are reborn ready to taste everything there is, whether 20 or 150 wines. And so, without hardly realizing it, you give yourself to the wine, to look for its most extraordinary purity.

Ismael produces 10 dry white wines at Microbio Wines. Everyone is thought, so each one of them transmits everything that its author wants. There is nothing at random, although it may seem so. They all have many things in common, just as we have commented (very old vineyard, no chemical treatment, native yeasts, no addition of sulphurous, vertical press, low yields, slight hyperoxidation, absence of filtration etc.), but now is the time to analyze the individuality of each from them.

CORRECAMINOS would be like “your business card as producer of natural wines”. According to its label, it is a “young, agile and dynamic wine with a long drink and easy, but not because of that it stops having structure and intensity”. Very traditional winemaking, with a slight hyperoxidation in the pressing, which makes it a little hard at first, but very stable and long-lived; exactly the opposite as the protocols of modern oenology, which with the aim to get creamy wines from the beginning use as many chemical rectifications as are necessary. Subsequently it is 5-6 months in steel tanks, to continue maintaining the freshness and the fruit, and with its lees, that contribute certain complexity.

MICROBIO exists very recently, for years it was La Mar Salada and it was sold in exclusive to the restaurant El Campero, in Barbate, Cádiz (one of the best “Tuna restaurants” around the world). Whenever we taste it in the cellar it seems to us the most saline wine of all, with difference, and it gives us the feeling of freshness and youth. The aging of the wine takes place in old fudres of old wood, from the Moselle (Germany), which provide mystery and magic. In the label Ismael itself defines the microbe as "Being alive or tiny this is my tribute to those responsible for giving life.” For Ismael, the bacteria, fungi and yeast activity are the origin of wine. A living and healthy soil, with energy, it is essential to make great natural wines.

ISSE is a fatty, glyceric and very fruity wine, with notes of citrus and apple. It ferments and is raised in clay jars, without skins. The wine is introduced into the very cloudy barrel, it ferments very slowly for several months, thanks to the constant temperature of 11- 12 ° C, and when finished, the jar is covered, the wine remaining in the same jar for 10-11 months, to spend several months in a stainless steel tank. The vineyard of this wine is of the year 1868, it is exactly 150 years old, 0.58 hectares at 915 meters high, and soil sandy siliceous and some boulder. In the 6-7 years that wine has been brewing it has defined a lot, although at first the method dominated is now the grape and Ismael.
Production of 780 liters.

LA RESISTENCIA is a new wine bottled for the first time in the 2018 vintage.
It has a similar sparkling wine called "La Resistencia active against Le Marqués". Every Wine has its history, and this one too. In the 2018 vintage Ismael already had confirmed, since months ago, the sale of 100,000 kilos of grapes to an important winery of the D.O. Rueda. Two
or three days before the harvest they tell him that they will not buy his grapes because they have all the warehouses full of wine. Ismael reacts in extremis, sells one part, and the other, that does not fit in his small cellar, he decides to vinify it in the old jars of the cellar of his father, unused for years. We have not tasted it, but we are looking forward to it. Those jars they have been reborn again, and I am convinced that, by allying with the grape, they will have made a wine extraordinary.

RACK arises from a commission to make a very rare, a really weird wine, hence its first name. It is its most radical and extreme wine, makes a fermentation in deposit of stainless with a very high turbidity, looking for a powerful reduction, which acts protecting the wine on this must in fermentation add fresh skins and scrapes to increase turbidity. It remains with its lees until February, it is bottled in March. Are produced 650 bottles It is the most difficult wine of Ismael, only recommended for those who, in addition to they like wine very much, they want to discover new experiences. It is an extremely wine long, maybe 20-25 years, currently in 2019 the 2014 vintage needs 2-3 days uncovered to start being in top form. It's very exciting, that endless fight between the reduction and acidity, from purity and strength, two authentic beasts, pure and powerful, in fullness.

ILEGAL is made with a vineyard of free-standing prephyloxéric of 1847, 180 years old.
It was so old that it didn't even appear in the official records. Ismael harvested his own vineyard at night, as if he were stealing his own grapes, but had no other choice, liked it and continues to do the same. It is a wine of great character, nor bombs are not transferred or used, all by gravity, and hence their high CO2 content. By not having sulphurous, carbonic protects it from oxidation, and allows us to enjoy its character frizzante. It is aged in a barrel of 4-5 years for 10-11 months. They are bottled 265 bottles.

SIN RUMBO comes from Los Navales vineyard, 0.42 hectares planted at 910 meters in the year 1872. It is a late vintage wine, with the pros and cons that entails. It's another wine atypical of great character. After pressing, in which the must be oxidized, it is partially ragged, it goes into the barrel, for fermentation and aging. For us the most notable is the slight touch of volatile, very attractive, which enhances its aromas and increases slightly acidity. Two annual barrels are produced, between 500 and 600 bottles. Is nothing easy to make this type of wine, you have to control the volatile a lot so that it does not shoot, and in an instant goes from being an extraordinary wine to lousy. Integrates the volatile perfectly into the wine, with a great balance, and achieves an insinuating, deep, intense, complex wine ...

KM.0 EL ORIGEN is one of his first wines, 8-10 vintages have already been made. It came extremely long, at least 20-25 years in top form. After a breeding in 10-12 months barrel, the wine is refined another 10 months in steel tank. It's an orange wine, at the level of the best orange wines in the world, as a result of the contact of must with skins and scrape for a long time. All orange wines are very tannic for its elaboration system, but in the case of Km 0, compared to other similar wines, we appreciate that when elaborated with such extraordinary grapes the final balance of the wine is different, and we clearly appreciate that at no time the elaboration system imposes on minerality and fruit of the grape. A tribute to the first wines of our land.

CIRCUMSTANCIAL arises when it arises, there was nothing predetermined. In all our visits to the winery, at the end, in the deepest part, we were tasting several barrels that we liked very much. Different wines, aged in very long old barrels, 3-4-5 years, even more. The first time that Ismael set aside a barrel was in the 2010 vintage, and there go on, without bottling. For this first vintage of Circumstantial Ismael has chosen the barrel of 2015, which for him is at the optimum moment of consumption. Inspired by Les Vignes de Mon Pere, from Ganevat, this very long aging wine is a great natural wine, where time squeeze all the potential and character of the Verdejo. We are looking forward to tasting it now bottling.

FRÁGIL is for us a very exciting wine. He grows up in glass ladybugs, each one evolved to its free will, being very different the color, the intensity, the fineness ... of each other. It is the purest expression of Verdejo, since there is no interference between the soil and the bottle. They produce between 150 and 200 bottles per year. Already extinct 2014, the first vintage, we bought almost all the production, from 2016 it drives us crazy that slightly sweet character as if it were a “superkabinett”, 2018 is totally dry, but insinuates pleasure in abundance ... Never has a wine so beautifully shown the concept of fragility and all that this entails, delicacy, subtlety, purity ...

MicroBio Wines