Mariano García, the patriarch of Ribera del Duero, turns 80 in top form: “I knew that a wine with personality would not fail”

The German high command has taken over the Hungarian Headquarters. “The Reich troops are rapidly heading towards the Carpathians, through Slovakia.” This is the headline of the newspaper The North of Castile on March 28, 1944. That day, among the vines and winepresses of Vega Sicilia, where his father, Mauro, was in charge of the field, Mariano García was born. Time passes and the patriarch of Ribera del Duero wine has turned 80 years old.

A life and a look that shook an ossified wine-growing Spain at the end of the seventies. The journey of an existence—of someone who is one of the most respected winemakers in the world—when in Ribera del Duero only Vega Sicilia, Protos, Pesquera and several bulk sales cooperatives made up the landscape. In 1978, Mariano García acquired an old Tempranillo grape vineyard, which they were going to uproot, in the Traspinedo area (Valladolid), of just three hectares. “You will pay me when you can and however you can,” Antonio Ibáñez, its owner, told him. At that time it was as scarce as those vines of grape clusters. However, two years later he presented 3,000 bottles of Mauro’s first vintage.

Almost half a century later, the numbers have another dimension. It sells 750,000 bottles a year, has 13 wines—Mauro, Mauro VS, Terreus, Mauro Godello, San Román, Prima, San Román Malvasía, Cartago, San Román Garnacha, Garmón, Valeyo, Baynos and Baynos blanco de viura—, invoice 15, 5 million euros, exports 40% of the production to 65 countries, is part, as technical director, of the Aalto winery (manages an 11% stake) and that minimum land has become 260 hectares. And the mauros, which he began to make in a mansion in Tudela de Duero, which had been the refuge of a lover of Philip IV, is today the historic winery. Under his memory he invoices 10.4 million euros (includes Valeyo and Baynos) from, perhaps, the best-known brand.

Locating your wineries is similar to pointing out on a road map a good part of the rest areas of Spanish wine: Tudela de Duero, Ribera del Duero, Toro, Bierzo, Rioja.

We are in his office in Tudela del Duero. In his office at Bodegas Mauro, in front of a table without a computer, but piled high with post-its, which are reminders of pending tasks, Mariano García consults the agenda before starting. The beginning is obvious. Did he ever imagine that he would build this grapevine emporium? “I knew that if I had a good vineyard, if I did serious work, respecting the raw materials and without rushing, slowly, I would get a wine with personality and style; and that did not fail,” he says. Wines that express the flavors of the terroir, the cru, which the French call.

Before everything there is Vega Sicilia. He arrived there, after training at the School of Vine and Wine in Madrid, at the age of 24, requested by Jesús Anadón, the manager of the myth. “He was a charismatic and very special man,” says García. But he noticed the talent of a kid who nailed the blind tastings. In 1968 he made the first vintage with José de Castro. That spring, young people in Paris claimed that beneath the streets of the Saint-Germain-des-Prés neighborhood there was a beach. Ask for the impossible. The portrait of his generation. During his stay in Vega Sicilia, he produces 30 vintages. Among them, the unforgettable ones, according to experts, 1968, 1970, 1981 or 1994.

Just that last year he arrived in Toro at a time when the vineyards were disappearing. He was a pioneer. At that time, Brussels paid farmers in the area to raise them. He does the opposite. He buys vines and during 1997 he produces the first vintage (the following year he abandoned Vega Sicilia) of San Román (today it sells 3.7 million euros), which went on the market in 1999. “If there is a vintage red wine, that is it. Bull; It has structure and elegance,” he explains. In the current barrels he makes some 300,000 bottles of San Román and Prima, his younger brother.

Support from children

In this succession of years, which are like train stops at different stations, those from 1999 to 2001 are essential. His two sons already work in the wineries. Alberto, a journalist, who brings “a business philosophy,” and Eduardo, who had trained in Bordeaux, Burgundy and California, and “with the three of them together, the brand obtains its maximum potential,” his father admits. Eduardo, a true “vine addict”, as he recognizes himself, acquires more hectares in San Román and begins to study, together with Alberto, new geographies, new forms of production (they introduce the ecological world and approach biodynamics). García founded, with the late viticulturist Javier Zaccagnini, Bodegas Aalto. Move up fast. In fact, they are already designing the project of a specific winery dedicated to white wine.

The family trilogy of wineries in the Duero Valley is completed with Garmón (turnover just over 1.3 million euros and produces 50,000 bottles). The assembly? Sustainable viticulture, less vigorous clones and balanced ripening cycles. The other triangle. However, planting vines is just like life: it means embarking on a journey. La Rioja Alavesa—with its best vineyards at more than 100,000 euros per hectare—is a land that has always been on the table. In the particular arithmetic of the García family, in 2020 they propose their first Rioja wine, Baynos, nine hectares of old vineyards worked organically, in Baños de Ebro, where they produce in their own cellar. Those old mansions with underground wine cellars.

And from there, to Bierzo (Valtuille de Arriba). The fifth winemaking territory. In this case, Valeyo. A Mencia grape wine, which is rooted in three hectares located at 650 meters above sea level, in clay and slate terrain, which descends with vertigo. The investment in both wineries totals 5.5 million. The end of a getaway that lasts more than 50 years? Impossible. “France, despite the fact that the vines are very expensive, is always an option because if anyone masters French wines it is Eduardo, who has spent half his life making and studying there,” the winemaker concludes. Although García is more Pérez-Reverte than García Márquez: autumn does not fall on the patriarch of Ribera del Duero.

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