Sotil 2018

During the Sòtil - in German Ridge, with a view of the sky, see label - was always a cuvée until 2017, Bàrbara Mesquida Mora has switched to using only the indigenous Callet grape variety, which is mainly found in Felanitx as well as in her 67-year-old d'Es Pou de Sa Carrera vineyard in the home village of Porrera. The grapes were mostly destemmed and fermented in open 500-litre oak barrels. Afterwards, the Callet matured in different vessels, in used barriques, in cellar amphorae and in stainless steel.

slightly transparent ruby red

The Callet called Sòtil is a wonderfully fragrant and delicately spicy wine, whose aromas start with wild strawberries and raspberries and continue through violets and rose petals to thyme and anise. Already in the fragrance you get an idea that this will be an extremely fresh and at the same time complex wine.

In fact, it is becoming increasingly clear that the autochthonous Mallorcan grape variety Callet has great potential. Moreover, with its characteristics, it corresponds to the current zeitgeist of producing fresh and at the same time juicy, transparent and yet complex wines with moderate alcohol content. All this is true here. The wine is also Mediterranean, insular and Burgundian at the same time. You sense a certain warmth in the fruit like a Volnay from a slightly warmer year, but there is also a cool breeze in this wine as well as a mix of fruits and herbs like you had on the nose, only here a few additional cherries and plums show up. The Sòtil is a wine of great finesse, as you might not expect from Mallorca, where until today the focus is too often on Bordeaux grape varieties, which actually hardly belong there. The winemaker's decision not to use any more Pinot in this wine is absolutely right, too; because in Mallorca, Callet can be much more Pinot than Pinot itself, so to speak. And in 2018, Callet became a wine of wonderful finesse, clarity and elegance with a tailor-made acid framework and a lively minerality.