Viña Zorzal - Garnacha, Navarra, Spain (2022)

TASTING NOTES

Aromatic with red fruit, liquorice spicy and earthy notes and a touch of beeswax. Juicy, with smooth tannins, good grip and tension between chalky notes and the red fruit.

Brothers Xabi, Iñaki and Mikel Sanz created Viña Zorzal in 2007, taking advantage of their long history and tradition as a winemaking family in Correla, Navarra. Their family winery, Bodegas Correlana, had been run by their grandfather and father to great success in the region, and they became a reference point in the industry. But while the older generation had been more preoccupied with having a viable and commercial trade, the current one decided to take a holistic approach to agriculture, and make artisanal wines, focusing on single-parcels and single-vineyards, and on the terroir of Fitero, this subzone of the D.O. Navarra.

Their landscape differs from the much flatter areas of Navarra where Garnacha and Tempranillo are cropped in high volumes. Their vines grow on rocky and stony soils with clay and limestone soils. The fact that the clay-based soils are non-homogeneous makes them much more permeable and resistant to erosion than the soils of the Ebro Basin.

They own 40 hectares, 25 of which planted with the traditional Garnacha of the land. The wild bush vines are old, many centenarian, and are farmed organically. The remaining land is planted with Graciano (which quickly made their fame), Tempranillo, and some Garnacha Blanca and Chardonnay.

The wines are made in a remodeled part of the family’s old winery, and the work in the cellar follows the work on the land, which they summarize here: “We practice low intervention, environmentally-friendly viticulture; we do not till the vineyards, and all processes are carried out manually; we use selected native plants for ground cover fertilizing with compost to improve the vine’s resistance to diseases. This philosophy is carried through to the winery, where our wines ferment spontaneously. We avoid racking, and don’t filter nor clarify. No additives are used, only a sufficient, moderate amount of sulphur.”