An Negra, The Winery and its philosophy
A winery in the Mediterranean island of Mallorca? Yes! And we're very, very grateful they exist.
Founded in Felanitx in 1994, Ànima Negra is the result of a Mallorcan climate, terroir and indigenous grape fusion.Its founders, Pere Obrador and Miquel Àngel Cerdà, are collegue dropouts who became great self-taught winemakers. With some advisory from oenologist Francesc Grimalt (Now leading his own project), they started making wine in two barriques made from unused milk tanks in an attempt to unleash Mallorca's full winemaking potential. Needless to say, things are going well.
Wines are produced in the old "possesio" (local term used to refer to agricultural plots) of Son Bruguera, right next to Felanitx, where buildings that date back to the 13th century still have a traditional winemaking area, used in the past to supply wine to locals.
Pere Ignasi Obrador and Miquel Àngel Cerdà, founders of Ànima Negra
Ànima Negra is fond of biodynamic practices, avoiding chemical pesticides or fertilizers, and producing small, concentrated fruit. Indigenous yeasts are used for almost all fermentation. As a consequence, their wines are unique, to say the least, elegant, and "sincere and special" as they like to say.
The vineyards
Ànima Negra owns or controls about 135 vineyard plots, which they get their grapes from, in less than a 6 mile radious from the winery. Vines are 50 to 85 years old and often surrounded my fruit trees. Thanks to its current or former owners' determination, these vineyards survided multiple generous purchase offers from investors involved in the island's Real Estate boom, who had no intention to conservate and would have likely pulled them all out.
One of the Ànima Negra vineyards
Grape varieties used are indigenous to the island (Callet, Mantonegro, Fogoneu and Prensal Blanc).Callet, which they use in all their wines, is a red grape that is white vinified as in a Blanc de Noirs wine. Pere and Miquel Àngel credit some of their friends, including prestigious oenologist Joan Milà, as the valuable advisers who have helped them improve as winemakers.
Quibia 2019, the wine
A very unique wine - Around their flagship grape, Callet, Ànima Negra created this elegant, fresh and varietal white wine as a blend of indigenous Mallorcan grape varieties using their fresh yeasts cultivated from the vineyards and aged on its lees.
"Quibia gets its name from a worry-free state of mind"
Quibia is a 12% ABV white blend of 40% Callet, 35% Premsal and 25% Giró Ros grapes harvested in mid-september using small 10Kg boxes (22 Lbs).
The team does a manual and optical selection of grapes, which are stored in a cold storage as they arrive to the winery using dry ice to prexent oxidation. Next, there's a cold maceration of the Premsal grapes for about 10 hours in a carbonic atmosphere at 12 degrees Celsius (53F). Fermentation occurs in 7000-liter tanks at 17 degrees Celsius (62F) for about 4 months using fresh yeasts captured from their own vineyards, which reinforces and enhances the characteristics of their local varieties in the wine's personality.
Capturing Wine advocate's notes from their 89 point score:
"There was a hailstorm September 13-14, but the grapes for the 2019 Quíbia had already been picked. This sort of blanc de noirs was produced as a white, with a majority of red grapes matured in tank with lees before bottling. It's a fruit-driven and approachable white closed with a screw cap and destined for short-term consumption. It was produced in a clean and expressive way without terrible complexity. This 2019 feels riper, and the palate reveals a softer mouthfeel, tender and light. 60,000 bottles. It was bottled between January and February 2020"
Thinking about a seafood dinner? Day at the beach? Pic-nic with friends? This wine calls for fish or, even better, shellfish. If you feeling Spanish, we have a suggestion; Paella! We've got some future recipes to share - You'll nail them!
Here's where we took our bottle of Quibia 2019. Find it HERE and send us your pics!
Cheers!
Daniel, from Del Duero Wines.