Uvas Felices

Uvas Felices is not a winery. There is no cellar with that sign on the door, no estate, and no vineyard that one could visit. It is a collection of wine projects scattered throughout Spain: each wine is produced by different winemakers in different regions, and all are sold under a single brand by a Barcelona-based wine merchant. The name means ‘happy grapes’, which gives a rough idea of just how seriously the people behind this project take themselves, and how seriously they take wine, that is to say, very seriously.

History

The story begins with a single shop. ‘Vila Viniteca’ is a family business founded in 1932 and situated in Barcelona’s old quarter, a two-minute walk from the Basilica of Santa Maria del Mar. For decades, it was a delicatessen and wine shop – the sort of place where you could buy some cheese and a bottle of wine on your way home.

In the 1990s, the co-owners, Francisco Martí and Quim Vila, joined forces and transformed the shop into a serious wine-trading enterprise. Martí was not merely the shop’s owner. He had been involved in viticulture for many years and owned Ca N’Estruc — a Catalan estate whose history dates back to 1548.

The pair began searching for old vineyards and forgotten grape varieties — precisely the sort of thing nobody in Spain was buying at the time. In 1998, this search resulted in two wines: ‘Paisajes’ from Rioja and ‘Viña al Lado de la Casa’. This is how the company ‘Uvas Felices’ came into being.

The project in Yecla demonstrates how this model works. In 1999, Vila and Martí visited the Castaño winery and tasted three wines made from the Monastrell grape variety from the 1998 vintage. They liked them so much that they asked Castaño to produce an exclusive batch for them. That same year saw the release of the first ‘Viña al Lado de la Casa’ wine – just 2,000 bottles. Five years later, in 2004, Castaño and Uvas Felices acquired a 14-hectare plot in an area known as Las Gateras. Since then, this plot has expanded to 49 hectares.

This pattern was repeated throughout Spain: find a region, find a grape grower or winemaker already doing good work there, and create something together, rather than buying land and ‘parachuting in’. Today, the wines are sold in 40 countries.

Vineyards

As each project is located in a different place, there is no single ‘Uvas Felices’ vineyard to speak of. Instead, they have a whole network of vineyards.

In Yecla, in the south-east of the country, the vineyards grow on poor limestone soils, suitable for the Monastrell and Alicante Bouschet varieties, which are grown without irrigation. The climate here is predominantly continental, with long, cold winters and long, hot summers. The difference between day and night temperatures can reach 25 degrees, which allows the grapes to ripen properly without overheating, whilst the region itself boasts the highest average number of hours of sunshine in Spain. Rainfall is low. Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah and Merlot have also been planted here and have taken root well.
Galicia, on the other hand, is the complete opposite in every respect. In Rías Baixas, the vineyards are situated in the immediate vicinity of the Atlantic Ocean, which brings frequent winter rains and mild, sometimes warm temperatures, whilst summers rarely get very hot. The ‘El Hardín de Lucía’ winery comprises small plots belonging to around twenty winegrowers in the Val do Salnes valley, near Cambados and Ribadumia in the province of Pontevedra, on shallow sandy soils barely rising above sea level.

Between these two extremes lie Rioja, Ribera del Duero, Rueda, Ribeira Sacra, Vinos de Madrid, Catalonia, the Cava region and Jerez. Some of the partner estates are several centuries old. Others were established quite recently.

Grapes

The stated aim is to use indigenous varieties from distinctive plots, and for the most part this is achieved.

Monastrell forms the backbone of Yecla, where it is the principal red variety of this appellation and is always harvested last, as it has the longest growing season. Alicante Bouschet, Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon round out the range in this region.

Albariño is the hallmark of Rías Baixas. Rioja is all about Tempranillo and its traditional companion varieties. Rueda is all about Verdejo, and here three distinct Rueda brands are featured, which goes beyond the efforts of most producers. Ribeira Sacra represents Galician red wines; Ribera del Duero features Tempranillo once again, but in a completely different guise; whilst Cava wines utilise traditional Catalan grape varieties. There is also Lustau in Jerez, which works with Palomino – this particular producer does not fit into any clear-cut classification.

Wines

The full list comprises around a dozen labels: ‘Ca N’Estru’ in Catalonia, ‘L’Origan’ and ‘Glissade’ in Cava, ‘El Ombre Bala’ in ‘Vinos de Madrid’, ‘Paisajes’ in Rioja, ‘Fenomenal’, ‘La Locomotora’ and ‘El Perro Verde’ in Rueda, ‘Sospechoso’ in ‘Vino de la Tierra de Castilla’, ‘Venta las Vacas’ in Ribera del Duero, ‘El Jardín de Lucía’ in Rías Baixas, ‘Paxaro Tolo’ in Ribeira Sacra, ‘Viña al Lado de la Casa’ in Yecla and ‘Lustau’ from Jerez.

Yekla is the most established of these, and is worth considering as an example. The grapes are harvested by hand. Fermentation takes place spontaneously, whilst the cap of grapes is pressed by hand in small open vats with a capacity of 20 to 30 hectolitres, which are maintained at a temperature of 26 to 28 degrees. Maceration lasts between 10 and 14 days, after which the wine is racked off and the skins are gently pressed; malolactic fermentation then takes place in stainless-steel tanks. Ageing takes place for 18 months in new French oak barrels of 225 and 500 litres, in an underground cellar with controlled temperature and humidity.

On this basis, two further ranges were launched. In 2001, the ‘Detrás de la Casa’ range was introduced, created from high-quality batches that did not make it into the main blend but were too interesting to be wasted. In 2018, the ‘Altos de las Gateras’ range was launched – two wines from a single vineyard, fermented and macerated in open 500-litre barrels with 15 days’ skin contact, and then aged for between 21 and 25 months.

‘El Jardín de Lucía’, from the other end of the country, has a simpler production process: hand-harvested Albariño, fermented in stainless steel tanks, aged on its lees for four months, then bottled. The first vintage, from 2009, was created by Eulogio Pomares.

Did you know

This name is a joke that’s stuck. ‘Uvas Felices’ means ‘happy grapes’. For a project supplying wine to Michelin-starred restaurants, this is clearly not a serious label.

Production volumes can be minuscule. Altos de las Gateras wines are produced in batches of 420 bottles of Syrah and 612 bottles of Monastrell per year. The first release of Viña al Lado de la Casa, back in 1999, totalled 2,000 bottles.

Each batch is tasted by the two founders before being bottled. In Yecla, Kim Vila and Sisco Martí meet with winemaker Mariano López to taste the batches before making decisions on the blends. For a company that owns virtually none of the wineries in its portfolio, this represents a very active involvement in the process.