Ten years ago, Celler del Roure was your prototypically modern, minimalist wine cellar. It was luminously clean, with stainless steel tanks, tri-clover clamps, and shiny new French oak barrels. The ancient winery onsite was used as a sort of museum, a tour-stop that showed how wine used to be made – loaded with oftentimes cracked clay amphorae and individual stone lids – interconnected by rough-hewn drain channels carved into the rock to form a rudimentary gravity flow system. Had it not been for Pablo Calatayud, it might have stayed that way.

Pablo is a sort of historian – who just happens to make great wine. A passionate enthusiast of the Valencia region, and the village of Moixent where the winery stands, Pablo has long championed the native varieties of grapes – like Mandó and Verdil. When he encountered the ancient cellar – he realized… how could a champion of these long-standing native varieties not also pay respect to the region’s indigenous viniculture? And so, what was old became new again.

This delectable and utterly unique sparkling wine is 100% Mandó made in méthod ancestrale that predates method champenoise by centuries. Likely, it was discovered by accident, as a slightly unfinished fermentation was bottled, and over time the enclosure miraculously held as pressure, and bubbles were created inside the bottle as the fermentation finished. Et voilà! Sparkling wine was born. Today, of course, the practice is far more than mere accident. These organically grown grapes are harvested and crushed, with only the free-run juice allowed to ferment in tank. Indigenous yeast starts the fermentation, with bottling unfiltered before the sugars are fully converted into alcohol. From there, the bottles are conditioned for over 25 months before disgorgement, leaving about 3-6 grams per liter’s worth of unconverted sugar.

The result is a lightly fizzed, gloriously fresh pinkish-rose wine that is simply bursting with creamy black cherry soda, and wild strawberries with cream, followed by a tart tang of spiced cranberry, with roasted and smoldering notes of lavender, rosemary, and sage. If you’ve had Lambrusco, or enjoyed some easy-drinking, supremely quaffable Pét-Nats, you really have to try this! Equal parts hip and historic – this is a delight that certainly needs sharing with your inner circle. We’ve been the exclusive carrier here in the U.S. for the past few vintages – and wow! What a treat! Salud seco! (Drink ‘till it's dry!)