Orulisa ‘Pum’ Tinto 2018

Location: Spain, Liébana

Winemaker: Isabel García & Sabino Quirós

Grapes: Merenzao, Mencía, Garnacha Tintorera, Godello, Palomino

Soil: Poor, rocky soils

From Us at M&L: There is no overstating the role that extreme weather (brought about - let’s be perfectly clear - by climate change) has in devastating vineyards throughout the world. In the village of Pumareña, in Valle de Liébana just set back from the north coast of Spain (I had to look at a map), 2018 was a disaster. Midsummer rains were so heavy that 2 hectares of vines only produced enough fruit for 300 bottles - about one tenth of normal production of a low yield parcel of that size.

Already working, heroically, the nearly 45 degree slopes between sea and mountains, Isabel García and Sabino Quirós managed to assemble a shockingly good wine. They usually vinify red and white grapes into 2 releases, but this time they threw the best of what was left at harvest together. They partially de-stemmed, foot stomped, fermented, then gently pressed it all back into tank for about 9 months before bottling.

The wine is unique, to me, for its clarity and purity while also exhibiting a dizzying complexity. It is deeply purple and concentrated but lithe and spry with acidity; it is sturdy in structure but slurpably drinkable; there is a distinct, fruited smokiness and a rocky minerality that makes me salivate. The bottle was gone too quickly, due in equal parts to our puzzling over every sip as well as it being absolutely delicious.-Peter

From the Importer, Ariana Rorich of AR Wine: “Pum de Pumareña is a vivacious mountain wine from third-generation orujo distiller, Isabel García, and her husband, Sabino Quirós.

In the far north of Spain, just inland from the coastal city of Santander and over the Picos de Europa mountains in Cantabria, lies the verdant Valle de Liébana, where vertiginous mountain vineyards are co-planted with 65—110-year-old, head-trained vines of red and white varieties Merenzao (Trousseau), Mencía, Garnacha Tintorera, Godello, and Palomino and more, commonly used to distill orujo, Cantabria’s local spirit made from grape pomace.

In 2014, Sabino (a naval engineer and surfer, pictured in action on the label above) began making wine from steep, old micro-parcels on the south-facing slate, limestone, quartzite, and sandstone slopes of Pumareña (the most planted mountain zone in Liébana, where at the beginning of the 20th century there were 800 hectares of vineyards, down to only 30 hectares today) that he and Isabel have been acquiring, renting, and painstakingly recuperating together, with the help of horses and mules.

2018 was a disastrous vintage in Liébana. There was so much rain that Orulisa could only produce 300 litres of wine from Pumareña. Ideally, Isabel and Sabino ferment white grapes separately for a PUM Vino Blanco and the red varieties (along with a few white grapes) go into PUM Vino Tinto. In 2018, all of the grapes from Pumareña that survived the rains (Merenzao, Mencía, Garnacha Tintorera, Godello, and Palomino) were used for this wine. The grapes were mostly destemmed (retaining a small proportion of whole bunches), foot stomped, co-fermented with native yeasts in stainless steel tank with two weeks of maceration, before a gentle, manual pressing. The wine was then returned to tank for 9 months and bottled with no fining or filtration.”