Dani & Fer at the top of their world – Rumbo al Norte
Earlier this year, I had the privilege of visiting Comando G to gain a deeper understanding of the direction this iconic winery is heading. Although now recognized as one of the top producers, not only in Spain but globally, my visit reminded me of their humble beginnings. While Dani and Fer have built a beautiful new facility, the feeling of “place” is ever-present—true to the essence of Sierra de Gredos. In a country of countless architectural statement cellars, Dani and Fer chose a simple and practical building built out of the same granite that forms the Sierra de Gredos and its varied and distinctive terruños.
All this was brought into focus when a wild fox wandered up to say hello. Not every day do you get to taste some of the best wines in the world while standing feet away from a fox. These moments capture the essence of Comando G: something deeply rooted in the land but guided by the restless and wild creativity that drew them into the mountains two decades ago.
During this visit, I was also struck by memories of Dani’s time in Seattle during the middle of one of the city’s largest riots. In true Dani fashion, he jumped up and down in front of riot police, passionately shouting, “La Tâche! La Tâche!”—a vivid reminder of his infectious energy and love of wine. Despite the evolution of Comando G from its formative years starting before it became Comando G, through its founding and expansion to new villages and ever higher elevations, moving the winery from Cadalso to Villanueva de Ávila, refocusing their work to center on the Alto Alberche, and the increasing demand for their wines worldwide as they reduce their overall production, Dani and Fer’s forward-thinking approach is what truly solidifies their place as the inspiration for a new generation of winemakers in Spain. Their unwavering commitment to expressing the purest form of site and village in the Sierra de Gredos ensures that Comando G will continue to push the boundaries of what’s possible with Garnacha. – R.D.
Rumbo al Norte at dusk
The utilitarian cellar of Comando G in Villanueva de Ávila
When one makes wines at elevation, vintage can play a significant factor in the youthful expression of the wines. Everything in the mountains is far more mercurial than on the plains, so for those inherent risk-takers, the thrill can be offset by heartbreak. This vintage is the first made at their new cellar in Villanueva de Ávila. This cellar is close to Rumbo al Norte and La Breña, and as the crow flies, Tumba del Rey Moro and the vineyards for their Villanueva village bottling. More importantly, their vineyards in Navatalgordo at the western edge of DO Cebreros no longer need to take a lengthy journey across the appellation to Cadalso in DO Vinos de Madrid. With their custom-designed cellar, Dani & Fer believe that the quality of the 2023 vintage approaches that of 2021, capturing a moderate and continental expression across their range of sites. While drought restricted overall yields, cluster size, berry size, and a cooler-than-average September with periods of light showers brought grapes to perfect ripeness for harvesting at the end of September and into October. One can only speculate how the wines would compare had they been made at their new cellar, but 2023 clearly speaks for itself.
In contrast to 2023, 2022 is a more Mediterranean season dominated by high temperatures from May to the end of August. Once again, September saved the harvest when temperatures moderated, and brief showers allowed the vines to finish maturation, bringing balance to the prevailing character of the vintage. With an abundant fruit set in Spring, Dani and Fer gambled that the excessive heat would end so that their slightly higher-than-average yields would bring the potential alcohol, fruit character, and acidity into harmony at harvest. By shortening the maceration times in the cellar to manage the tannins of the thicker skins of the vintage, one would be hard-pressed to identify this as an excessively warm, dry, challenging, and nerve-wracking vintage – added proof of Dani & Fer’s unrivaled mastery of Garnacha de Gredos. This is even more remarkable considering this vintage was made under the constraints of their old cellar in Cadalso.
Significant changes have finally come to fruition at Comando G, and this release will mark a turning point for the estate, but one that has been in the works for a long time. Dani and Fer have established a new hierarchy for their wines, something that has evolved organically over time as they gained more experience with their parcels and could perceive village and site characteristics as they restored and revitalized these sites – many had been abandoned entirely or in part as people moved out of the mountains to the more fertile soils of the plains or opportunities in nearby Madrid. The vertical hierarchy is as follows:
Keen observers will note that neither El Reventón nor La Bruja are included in this new hierarchy, and the current release will be the final vintages for these two wines – 2022 for El Reventón and 2023 for La Bruja.
El Reventón is located in the vicinity of the village of Cebreros. Having slate soils similar to Las Iruelas, it was seen as somewhat of a redundancy once Dani Landi moved Las Iruelas for his now-defunct eponymous label to Comando G. Furthermore, soil studies conducted by Pedro Parra also revealed that El Reventón and Las Iruelas share a similar dramatic changes in their subsoil requiring more intensive farming and lower yields to achieve what they feel is an accurate expression of each site. Two “troublesome” Grand Crus of this nature were one too many, and feeling that El Tiemblo offered more possibilities for a village wine, El Reventón’s fate was sealed.
A man cannot write on bread alone
Comando G has been making La Bruja since its very start when it was known first as La Bruja Averia (look what I was drinking this week!), then La Bruja de Rozas, and finally just La Bruja. Sourcing has also changed over the years from vineyards to Cadalso, then Rozas, and once the project settled in Rozas, the sourcing changed as more vineyards were added. Eventually, some sites in Rozas were designated and destined for Rozas 1er Cru, and then Mingogil was identified as the village’s obvious 1er Cru parcel and as a consequence, Rozas 1er Cru disappeared and was replaced by Rozas Village. With all the shuffling of vineyards in Rozas, an increasing focus on village and parcel wines, and the move from Cadalso to Villanueva, the volume, generic Sierra de Gredos wine no longer made logistical or economic sense. With their current size and geographic spread, side projects and larger volume wines under the Comando G label would require either expanding the demands on their time or necessitating decisions based on economic expediency. This would lead to a radically different Comando G than Dani & Fer imagined at its inception. Over time, the volumes of the village wines will gradually grow to fill part of the gap left by Bruja, but overall production will decrease slightly. To soften the blow to one of their first and most important markets, they have ensured that out of the remaining cuvées, and despite ever-growing worldwide demand, US allocations from here on out will not be affected.
The vineyard classification is one way to view the new hierarchy at Comando G but a corresponding geographic, village-based hierarchy also serves to understand the wines of Comando G.
Tumba del Rey Moro in Villanueva de Ávila
VILLANUEVA DE ÁVILAAt the very top of their hierarchy is Rumbo al Norte, a singular vineyard that looks like a cross between Stonehenge and Machu Picchu with its orderly yet random granitic boulders spaced with pockets of gnarled Garnacha. All those years ago, Dani shouting La Tâche at a riot in Seattle proved prophetic as he and Fer now have the La Tâche of the Gredos. If Rumbo is their La Tâche, then Tumba del Rey Moro, Dani & Fer’s Romanée-St-Vivant if one continues the Vosne-Romanée analogy as both are within the boundaries of Villanueva with its corresponding 1er Cru La Breña and several parcels, La Cañada, Las Herguijuelas and El Robledillo, included in the village wine. The soils of Villanueva are comprised of coarse, pebbly sand formed by the weathering of exposed granite bedrock – grey granite in the case of Rumbo al Norte and La Breña and pink granite in Tumba del Rey Moro. As the elevation decreases, more silt is mixed in the granitic soils, giving the Villanueva Village a rounder fruit expression.
El Tamboril in Winter, Navatalgordo
NAVATALGORDOAt the far western edge of Cebreros is Navatalgordo, the location of their Grand Cru El Tamboril (Tinto and Blanco), a new 1er Cru bottling Peña la Mora, and a village wine. Here, the white sandy soils are marked by a high proportion of quartz – one of the minerals that result from the weathering of granite. As a result, the wines from Navatalgordo tend towards a lower pH, firmer tannins, and a chiseled fruit expression. El Tamboril has the unique distinction of having a small section of the vineyard planted with Garnacha Blanca – the only Grand Cru white made at Comando G. The new 1er Cru, Peña la Mora comes from the lower part of the Tamboril parcel with a subtly different profile than the El Tamboril Tinto. The corresponding Navatalgordo Village is sourced from the parcels of El Sotillo, El Barrero, and Los Gorgones and has the most open expression of the Navatalgordo wines while sharing a similar elevation, soils, and character of the village.
Las Iruelas alone in the mountains, El Tiemblo
EL TIEMBLOLocated just west of El Tiemblo and at the headwaters of the Garganta de Iruelas is the unsurprisingly named Grand Cru, Las Iruelas. Currently, it is the solitary wine from El Tiemblo, but there are plans for at least a village wine to complement Las Iruelas, to showcase better the unique terruño of this corner of Cebreros – the steep narrow valley of the Garganta de Iruelas, prevailing northern exposures and slate soils. These elements combine to create wines with a distinctive peppery, spicy, and resinous character that wraps a core of pure mineral Garnacha fruit. Once part of Dani Landi’s own vineyards and bottled under his name for a little over a decade, it was added to Comando G’s portfolio starting in 2020 when his other vineyards in DO Méntrida were merged with Curro Bareño’s to create Viticola Mentridana.
Las Umbrias, or the shadow due to its northern exposure, Rozas de Puerto Real
ROZAS DE PUERTO REALOutside of DO Cebreros and in the DO of Vinos de Madrid are Comando G’s vineyards in Rozas. This unique spot in the Sierra de Gredos is at the crossroads of the region’s three DOs and the three valleys of the Sierra de Gredos – the upper and lower Alberche and the Tiétar. Now that the vineyard shuffle and reorganization have been completed, the profoundly ethereal, pale, and expressive Las Umbrías still stands out, as it always has, as the obvious Grand Cru site in the village. Mingogil’s inaugural release is next year and will be the new 1er Cru from Rozas, and Rozas Village will remain unchanged. Las Rozas is distinctive for the higher percentage of clay in the soils due to the weathering and deposition of lenses of mineral clay from the degradation of the feldspar in the granite bedrock of the Sierra de Gredos. Low in nutrients but with a greater capacity to retain water than the prevailing sandier soils of the Gredos, the wines from Rozas tend to have a burst of wild berry fruit flavor, lively acidity, and well-integrated layers of sweet tannin. These qualities make the wines alluring and immediately enjoyable. It also allows us to enjoy someone’s first experience with Las Umbrías– the questioning response to the color, which looks like a deeply colored rosé, followed by the surprise at its heady aromas, then the satisfaction of the vibrant fruit before the wonder at the length and structure in such a deceptively pale wine – this is the epitome of Rozas.
The Autumn 2024 release of Comando G will include
Early next year, the remaining parcel wines will be released.
In addition to the changes at Comando G, Dani & Fer has ended their collaboration with the Cooperative in Cadalso – the source of our entry-level Granito del Cadalso. In preparing us for this move, they recommended the work of two of their proteges – Aitor Paul and David Villamiel, who, after working at Comando G, established A Pie de Tierra in Vinos de Madrid based on David’s family’s vineyards near Aldea del Fresno. What they lack in sheer elevation, they’ve made up for in their vineyard work and winemaking, which shares all the same hallmarks that we find so compelling with Comando G. The new edition of Granito has been renamed Granito de Gredos to prevent any confusion about sourcing and its change from a cooperative to an estate wine. We were so impressed with the blend we assembled with Aitor and David and their earlier efforts at A Pie de Tierra that we decided to represent their entire range of wines as our newest Sierra de Gredos property. In our opinion, David and Aitor are at the forefront of the next generation of winemakers, following in the footsteps of Dani & Fer. We are more than confident that El Surco and Fuerza Bruta will fill the hole left by the absence of La Bruja next year.
Early on, the idea of a Sierra de Gredos was hampered by its political and preexisting appellation boundaries. The attempt to forge a broader Denominacion proved too insurmountable an obstacle to overcome, and with the creation of DO Cebreros, any lingering attempt ended. Contemporaneous with the early efforts for a more comprehensive understanding of the Gredos as a whole, the pioneering winemakers in the region created an initial shorthand for grasping the subtle differences – subzones by the river valleys of Valle del Alto Alberche, Valle del Alberche, and Valle del Tiétar. Now, there are two arbitrary and imprecise ways to define the Sierra de Gredos and two competing sets of species names without regard to genus or family. Imagine two different ways to view Burgundy, one focused on the village and its vineyards and one based on political boundaries, all while having no clear sense of what essentially unites them.
Undoubtedly, and over time, this will sort itself out. There is a growing sense of a Gredos character, a Gredosness, so to speak, which in the most talented hands results in pale wines, with a core of red fruit running the gamut from staples found at your local supermarket to those obscure local berries only the oldtimers in the mountains know how to find. Their floral aromas, redolent of resinous herbs, citrus, and warm stones, those brief moments after a light summer shower, are so beguiling, enticing, and evocative that one spends as much time smelling as tasting. Despite all these hallmarks of delicacy and refinement, under all is an iron backbone– not the girders of a skyscraper, but the filigree weightlessness of the Eifel Tower made more incomprehensible by realizing that it isn’t constructed but carved out of living granitic bedrock by nature over millions of years. This is the style of Gredos discovered by Dani Landi and Fernando Garcia, defined by them and their friends and neighbors, and represented in the wines not only from Comando G but also Curro Barreño’s Viticola Mentridana and A Pie de Tierra.
I’ve created the map above to try to impose some sense of order on the ill-defined and possibly undefinable nature of wines from the Sierra de Gredos. Zooming out, the hierarchy of Comando G makes complete sense – clusters of vineyards centered on villages with village wines and their 1er and/or Grand Cru sites. While most of their parcels are within DO Cebreros, the outlier is Rozas – the most “Cebreros-like” portion of DO Vinos de Madrid. Dani Landi’s former vineyards in El Real de San Vicente (Cantos del Diablo and those sites included in Las Uvas de la Ira) are now part of Viticola Mentridana. In Curro’s hands, they more readily reveal their Gevrey-like character. This is not typical of the richer prevailing style from Méntrida’s predominantly lower-elevation vineyards. It would be simple arithmetic to assume “Gredosness” is primarily defined by elevation, but mountains do cast shadows on the land, impacting sites at some remove, such as the vineyards of A Pie de Tierra and Curro’s El Mentridano cuvée. The thread that links these disparate parts remains elusive and might not be actively sought. For us, Sierra de Gredos works just fine regardless of the DO on the label, any consensus on the larger region, or from whichever valley it might originate. –S.S.