A short drive from Madrid among the craggy granite peaks of the Sierra de Gredos, Fernando García and Daniel Gómez Jiménez-Landi are making some of the most exciting garnacha in the world today. Their wines are bottled under the name Comando G and come from a number of old-vine, high-altitude vineyards nestled among rockfalls and stone amphitheaters that Fernando and Daniel uncovered mostly by drinking beer in the local taverns and listening to the stories of the farmers. They are known in many taverns as the encholados or “crazy oenologists.” The farmers have been keeping alive the ancient-vine garnachas through a pure devotion though for many years there work wasn’t particularly remunerative. Many are glad to have caring hands to pass the vineyards on to. Comando G farms biodynamically but they adapt their practices to each vineyard, usually inspired by the way the vineyards were cared for by the old hands who preceded them. The winemakers take stylistic inspiration from the most famous grenache in the world, Château Rayas, renowned for wines of astonishing power, delicacy, and grace.

Tumba del Rey Moro comes from a vineyard like a landslide with several natural terraces planted irregularly in gnarled 70-year-old, ungrafted garnacha vines. Only a few years ago the vineyard was inaccessible, overgrown with scrub brush. Daniel and Fernando heard rumors of the plot from a farmer in a local tavern and spent months finding the vines and then clearing a path to it so they could farm it. This site is on pink-hued granite and quartz. The wine is pale but it has a Rayas-like intensity. The aromas are all bunched red berries and herbs, green tea, lavender and a delicately-wrought mineral structure finishing with a final coda of blood orange bitterness. Transcendent.