Viniterraneus has just opened its doors and the first visitors are already showing up at the marquee of the Ibiza Fairgrounds. The organizer of the event and owner of Enotecum, Javier Escandell, expects that between 11:30 am and 7 pm there will be “2,500 wine lovers”, most of them professionals from the restaurant and hotel industry. “We have extended the opening hours to avoid congestion”, he explains.
After three years without being held due to the pandemic, Viniterraneus is back with a vengeance. “This year we have more than 160 wineries and about 1,200 wines, about 40% more than in 2019. All wine-growing countries are represented, but especially Spain, France and Italy,” he says.
The owner of Enotecum is very satisfied with the evolution of “one of the main private wine showrooms in Spain”, which is now in its nineteenth year, alternating its headquarters between Ibiza and Formentera. “We started in 2001 at the Hotel Los Molinos with about 40 wineries and 300 wines and look at it now,” he says as he points to the space occupied by the fair.
There is so much and such a diverse offering gathered in just 1,750 m2 that it is difficult to choose where to start this journey through the world of wine offered by Enotecum. Precisely “diversity” is one of the strong points of Viniterraneus for José Luis Murciano. “This fair has a very interesting profile because it is not focused on a single product and accommodates both large and small projects,” highlights the winemaker of Bodegas Bruno Murciano, a family project that was born twelve years ago in Caudete de las Fuentes, in the region of Requena-Utiel, in Valencia. “Our philosophy is to recover the native varieties rooted in the land. We mostly work with bobal”, he says before showing his trilogy of wines from this red grape variety, ‘Cambio de tercio’, ‘El sueño’ and ‘La Bruna’.
Bruno Murciano is a regular at Viniterraneus, as is the Álvaro Palacios group (Palacio Remondo, Álvaro Palacios and Descendientes de J. Palacios), which makes wines in three of Spain’s main wine regions: La Rioja, Priorat and El Bierzo. “We have been to this Enotecum meeting four or five times since its inception,” says Oriol Castells, the group’s technician. “It’s a fantastic showroom because it allows you to be face to face with both the end consumer and the restaurant professionals and explain your projects face to face,” he says. “We have brought thirteen products. Among the most special are ‘Quiñón de Valmira’, the maximum exponent of Grenache in La Rioja, and ‘Les Aubaguetes’, one of the top wines of Priorat”, he highlights.
Romina and María have just visited the two stands of the Álvaro Palacios group. The first is visiting the fair for professional reasons, she has a catering business, the second has joined the event for pleasure. The two friends are true enthusiasts. “This is the wine lovers’ Disneyland,” says Romina, who sees the Enotecum event as a unique opportunity to discover wines. “You have to be strategic and select well because we don’t spit out the wine after tasting it,” they comment with a laugh, before taking a look at the gastronomic area, where a small restaurant has been set up for customers and exhibitors.
Of the 90 stands in the tent, more than twenty are new, including that of Dominio de Calogía . “This is the first vintage to hit the market, it is 2019, a vintage that was considered one of the five best in the history of the Ribera del Duero region,” explains José Manuel Pérez, owner and winemaker of this boutique winery located in Roa de Duero. “Dominio de Calogía is my personal project and that of my wife, Silvia Ortega. We are committed to a deep, long-lived Ribera de Duero. It is a wine that will improve more in the bottle and is 100% from our own vineyards,” he explains. Pérez also praises Viniterraneus: “It is a brilliant initiative that allows you to taste the great national and international oenological diversity in one day”.
For Juan Ignacio Domènech it is also his first year at the Pitiusa fair. “It is worth admiring Viniterraneus’ ability to attract visitors. The best wineries of our country are here”, says the owner of Vinyes Domènech, a winery founded in 2002 located in Priorat, within the Montsant Designation of Origin. Among the novelties presented in Ibiza, ‘Teixar’ stands out, “the first and only wine of the DO Montsant that has the recognition of Vino de finca”.
One of the international proposals that has attended the Enotecum meeting is ‘Rumor’, a high quality rosé wine made in the Côtes de Provence wine region. Although the winery is in France the owner is American, Barry Bayat. He lives in New York but that has not prevented him from being in Ibiza today (yesterday). In fact he spends his life traveling to present in person his “baby”, the project he created in 2019, after leaving the world of finance.
The wineries of the land
Among the catering professionals who have just arrived at the fair is Joaquín Domínguez, owner of a restaurant in La Mola, on Formentera. “I’ve been here several times. It is a very well organized fair,” he says.
The Terramoll winery, founded in 2000, is also from La Mola. “More and more people are aware that wine is made on Formentera,” says José Abalde, Terramoll’s winemaker. He has been coming to the Enotecum showroom for a few years now. The winery’s six products are displayed on the table. Abalde highlights, as a novelty, ‘Terramoll natural’, a wine without sulfites “Although all our wines are organic, this one has the particularity that it is made with minimal intervention in the winery”.
In the same row of stands is Ibizkus , which this year presents its high-end wines, the ‘Totem’. “We have a red, a white and two rosés, made with grapes from vines that come from a single plot or ungrafted”, highlights Henrik Smith, marketing and sales director of this winery founded in 2007 on Ibiza. At his side is Toni Marí, the winemaker of Xumeu Vinya, a winery in Sant Josep, located between es Cubells and Cala d’Hort, which was born in 2016. It is dedicated exclusively to sparkling wines. “We have two lines, one is the ‘Brut Rosé’, made by the traditional method of second fermentation in bottle, and another more casual, the ‘Xumeu Vinya Ancestral’,” he explains. He is very happy with the acceptance of his products. In fact, Javier Escandell predicts that “sparkling wines from Ibiza will be the star products in the coming years”. The organizer of Viniterraneus says this after praising the quality of the local product. “Currently the quality of the wines of Ibiza is at the level of those produced in recognized wine regions of Spain”, he affirms without a shadow of doubt.
For the full article, please visit Diario de Ibiza website here.