El Reventón

It was a meeting of minds when ex-tech entrepreneur Gearoid Lane crossed paths with Adrianna Catena (younger daughter of Argentina’s pioneering Nicolas Catena) in London. Gearoid was re-training as a winemaker, and the pair were convinced they should find a project together. Not long after, another pioneer, Daniel Landi, the man who nearly single handedly put Spain’s Sierra de Gredos on the map, demanded Adrianna come to see what all the fuss was about in these rugged granite slopes 1,000m above sea level.  

She took along Catena’s long-standing, long-respected winemaker Alejandro Vigil, and soon the three friends were purchasing the eponymous El Reventón vineyard, a slate and quartz site planted in the 1940s, and made famous by Landi’s Commando G project. El Reventón is a popular Spanish phrase referring to blowing a tyre on a car, or in Gearoid’s words “a big f**k off party”. 

These are wines of character, minerality and precision. Farmed organically (although not certified) and biodynamically, they have everything to love about contemporary Garnacha; deep aromatics, poise and refinement. They manage to be profound and refreshing. In the winery, there’s judicious use of whole bunch fermentation, mainly in concrete, with some stainless steel and large old oak. There’s no fining or filtration. 

Their flagship wine, El Reventón, is from a single hectare, on a steep, southeast-facing slope of slate and quartz. La Reina is the wine they make in the greatest volume, from 6.2 hectares of granitic soils near San Juan de la Nava. And Cru Artesano is from an outcrop of slatey soils in the La Reina vineyard, made in tiny quantities. San Gregorio is another single vineyard of 2.6 hectares, situated in the Valle de Iruelas (a tributary of the Alberche river that runs through Gredos), planted between 1920 and 1945 on a mixture of slate, granite and quartz. Surrounded by thick pine forests, this is their most biodiverse spot.  

In the heart of Spain’s Sierra de Gredos, one of the most exciting parts of viticultural Spain right now, Bodega El Reventón has transformed from a passion project to an ambitious custodian of gnarly old vines, translating the steep slopes and rare soils of this dramatic region. Rich and refined simultaneously, these are beautiful expressions of Garnacha.