In honor of our reunion, and to help launch the new site, we wanted to visit a winery that would be inspiring! We faced the difficulty that this Fall most Mallorcan wineries have reduced their tasting hours – both because peak season tourism is over, and also because, yes, COVID restrictions have made things more challenging. So Tawnee got on the phone and started calling to see who was actually open for tastings. With our great luck, we found a rising star winery that has recently been reimagined, and is trailblazing a new Mallorcan wine standard.
On a blustery November day in Mallorca, we had an appointment for wine tasting at the newly reopened Bodega Santa Catarina. Driving up the long entrance road in Sencelles, the saturated fall colors of the vines, and rich red stony Mallorcan “call vermell” (“red soil”) shone lushly in the stormy light. Our tour and tasting guide, Wine Tourism Manager (Director Enoturismo) Philippe Salva Morer, was waiting out front, and we had the entire place to ourselves with an exclusive tour, because of weeks of pouring rain!
And what a tour it was! Product expert Guillermo Planas joined us, and we four explored their new facility, starting on the central 2nd floor with three intelligently designed rolling doors revealing bird’s-eye views from the vast display windows: The processing room with fermenting tanks, the barrel aging room, and the bottle aging and storage room. And then we walked them all! Strolling and viewing the perfectly temperature-and-humidity controlled production rooms, we learned about the original owner Stellan Lundqvist and his passion for bringing French wine grapes to Mallorca in the 1980s.
A little backstory: Santa Catarina has been a solid Mallorcan winery since 1984 when Swedish businessman Stellan Lundqvist first came to the island and fell in love with its beauty and the idea of making remarkable wine here. He bought land in Andratx and started his winery there on a traditional ‘possession’ (Spanish word for large properties including working land with a ‘Finca,’ = a traditional, large-scale country home). He chose the winery name from a Brazilian province he particularly liked – Santa Catarina. In Andratx they owned a 20-hectare vineyard, 40 hectares in Sencelles, and 10 hectares in Sineu. Stellan grew Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay and Syrah in this fertile Mallorcan ‘call vermell’ terroir. He made wine to his standards, and as a visionary businessman he embarked on bringing wine tourism to the island. From 1984 to 2014 Santa Catarina was one of the only vineyards and bodegas in the Andratx area. When Stellan passed away, his family stopped production, and rented out the winery to another winemaker on the island from 2004-2014. But when that contract finished, instead of renewing, they boldly decided to transform their brand.
Fast forward to the courageous decisions of his family in 2015 to pull the then-ailing vines, and replant the Sencellas 40 hectares with all new varietals: Everyone told them they were crazy! Once they had excavated so deeply to remove all roots, they let the soil lay fallow for a year to heal, and then bravely opted for an innovative deep-soil irrigation system. The water actually drips underground between the vine rows, allowing water to be delivered directly to the roots without allowing moisture and mildew at the plant base. Now everyone is asking them about their innovations! With the new vines finally producing, Bodega Santa Catarina’s first harvest was in 2020 on a small production scale, with full island and international market potential shrewdly built into the growth cycle and business plan.
Ouch! Their planned reborn-winery debut was during COVID times! They took that hit in stride, bottled their wines, and focused on completing their remarkable bodega. This effective facility is designed aesthetically with a mix of modern and traditional, using the colors of surrounding earth, rocks cleared from deep soil, and details of oxidized iron.
The family took on the business in Stellan’s honor, but with a new ethos: Locally sourced, environmentally conscious, and full focus on producing international-quality Mallorcan wines. They sold the properties in Andratx and Sineu in order to focus on a “zero” radius production on their largest plot of land = The Sencelles vineyard at Finca Son Aloy where we now toured.
Walking through the vast fermenting tank room, Guillermo taught us that Giro Ros grapes are sensitive to mold and generally low yield, so this grape almost disappeared from the island! And to our delight, we also learned that the emphasis of the reimagined Bodega Santa Catarina is primarily on local grapes and monovarietal wines = a wine using 100% one grape type! This is one of Tawnee’s passions, so what a serendipity discovery!!! It’s not unusual to get 100% Merlot, Cabernet or Chardonnay for example, but its rarer with Mallorcan grapes because of their various sensitivities.
We toured the room, dwarfed by giant fermenting tanks of stainless steel, Eastern European oak, and cement. The cement tanks are square shaped and allow different flavor traits than the others. The enormous oak barrels are used for the first fermentation of specific grapes, while the main Prensal and Giro Ros white wines remain in stainless steel tanks only. Their winemaking team, including Italian Roberto Cipresso and local Joan Gutiérrez, have come up with complex and very exact production recipes for their well-balanced wines. One example being three stages of oak barrel ageing for certain wines: Early time in their large Eastern European oak vats, then specific time in new French Oak foudres (large wooden vats popular in France’s Rhône Valley and significantly larger than typical oak barrels), and finishing in 2nd or 3rd use French oak casks. Their Prensal Blanc and Giro Ros whites do not go to oak – but we had the amazing treat of being shown one experimental French oak cask with Giro Ros, the aroma of which was stunningly sublime.
After working up a thirst on the tour, our tasting was a complete joy.
Guillermo and Philip took us to their education and tasting room (the picturesque original Finca tasting cantina was still under a remodel) where we watched a short, informative and inspiring video about the new Bodega Santa Catarina. Then Guillermo lined up five distinct glasses, including a Burgundy wine glass chosen to optimize their 100% Manto Negro wine. We started off fairly reserved in front of our hosts, but soon our enthusiasm for the wines, delight with details such as sustainable sugarcane pulp-fiber corks, and our respect for the team’s objectives to support both wine and environment overtook our manners, and we were in our element!
We found that all Santa Catarina wines are nicely dry, with compelling aroma, remarkable balance, and finish extremely well. They are produced with summer in mind, to pair with meals, and are rich, fresh and inviting.
The whites included a sumptuous yet delicate Giro Ros, and a crisp and savory Prensal Blanc. Both excellent. And then a surprise! Guillermo treated us to a taste of the young Giro Ros in oak! It clearly needed more time to complete its journey, but the dry, delicate, fruit and floral hints were as remarkable as the aroma promised. We will be watching to see how that distinctive wine makes it to blend or bottle!
When Guillermo had to leave, management specialist Andrés Negre took over with the pouring and fielding of our investigative questions. The reds we tasted included a coupage (blend) of Syrah, Manto Negro and Callet that was frankly transformative for Merie with its flush and juicy slake; and we both agreed that their monovarietal Manto Negro is exceptional. It boasts a uniquely strong color, inviting aroma, a complex yet light flavor, and a mouth-watering finish begging for good cheese or a lovely meal. Guillermo compared it to a Pinot Noir, light yet solid, which gave it a whole new identity for us. Fun fact: The Manto Negro grape is considered challenging because it does not easily provide a strong red color, does not create as much juice per grape, and has a lighter taste than the typical mainland Spanish grapes. For this reason, it has traditionally been used in blends or to make rosé wine, rarely valued for its own merit.
We finished our tasting with Santa Catarina’s traditional signature Merlot, and found it balanced, rich and smooth; Merlot lovers will be very pleased (but for us it paled a bit after the new Bodega local grape wines!). They chose to harvest the 10-hectare plot of Merlot grapes in Sineu for the last time before new owners took over, and to make a special wine honoring the father who started it all with his passion for French varietal Merlot wine. This bottle carries Stellan’s signature, and with grapes harvested in 2016, it is a limited edition 100% Merlot.
Bodega Santa Catarina is well worth a tour and tasting. Their story is a good one, their facility is large, elegant and comfortable; and their wines are consistently balanced, aromatic, forward and juicy, successfully produced to pair with meals and stand alone. Each wine we tasted was well worth taking home for meals and sharing with friends. Current wines available are from three Denomination of Origin: DO Binissalem (Sencellas vineyard) DO Pla I Llevant (the Merlot from Sineu) and Vi de la Tierra (the DO group for all of Mallorca).
The takeaway gems for us were:
We don’t know what the winery will be like when the large facility is filled to capacity with wine lovers, it’s a big space… So we plan to come back and find out when they open the tasting cantina for the Spring 2022 production season!
Santa Catarina: Sustainably celebrating Mallorca through dedicated local-grape winemaking!
The rain kept coming down, harder and harder, and darkness arrived. We thanked them for all their informative answers and the extra time they spent with us, and then we all took some fun pictures! Stepping out into the rain we were filled with good wine and the joy of another exceptional Mallorca Wine Tasting experience!
MWT ~ Mallorca Wine Tasting ~ has returned!
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PS. We went back to photograph the facility when it wasn’t pouring rain!…
