A Ignatius of Michael (Madrid, 1962) he is not very amused by the label that was given to him as “winemaker of the jet set”, but he knows perfectly well that he can no longer get rid of it. She accepts.
De Miguel was one of the first fly winemaker from Spain, an external technical consultant for the wineries, very common in the Anglo-Saxon world, but until recently not in our country. And what kind of person builds a winery from scratch with the help of a freelancing What organizes everything? Obviously, people with a lot of money.
Among its present or past clients are the former president of Repsol alfonso curtainthe builder Antonio Banus or the former president of Alcatel Miguel Canalejo. But, after working for many wineries for years, and although he continues to advise ten businessmen, De Miguel wants to slow down.
“I have tried to work less every day,” he explains to DAP at a meal at the El Lince restaurant (Madrid). “I don’t have children, I’m not ambitious. I want to take a step back.”. But not without giving his all in one last project: Bodegas NOC, the only business in which he does not work only as an external consultant, but as warehouse manager.
“In the other wineries I am very external,” he explains. “I want to work less, but put the warehouse at a flight speed”.
The outstanding student of Carlos Falcó
NOC is the new name of a winery that has been in the Toledo town of apple appleat the beginning of the Montes de Toledo, more than a century.
Ignacio de Miguel was one of the pioneer winemakers of the Montes de Toledo, at the hands of his mentor Carlos Falcó
Opened in 1918, it was “a somewhat aimless winery”, until it was bought in 2005 by the pharmaceutical businessman Carlos Galdon, technical director of the famous Antibiotics laboratory of Juan Abelló and, later, of Mario Conde. Galdón trusted De Miguel to lead a winery that hasn’t stopped growing in recent decades, thanks to the vines that Galdón himself bought in the area.
De Miguel was the ideal person to lead this project. Not only because he knows how to deal with millionaires, but also because he was, in fact, one of the pioneer winemakers of the Montes de Toledo, at the hands of his mentor Carlos Falcó, the Marques de Griñón.
Falcó is today almost better known for having been one of the husbands of Isabella Preysler and father of Tamara, but he was one of the revolutionary minds of modern Spanish viticulture.
“He was one of the great winemakers, one of the revolutionaries,” says De Miguel, who does not spare praise to the marquis, died during the covid-19 pandemic. “He had the ability to always go against the current, he was not satisfied with anything.”
He also had loads of money. “I had a cradle support, yes,” admits De Miguel. “But it didn’t matter. We were two nuts. With a good kidney, yes. I became like that because I was with Falcó. Joan Roca says that creativity is freedom, nonconformity and risk. I don’t care what is prohibited, you have to keep working. Sometimes you hit a hostion. It’s the way to create.”
Great wines in an area with no winemaking tradition
Tradition is of little use in an area like the Montes de Toledo in which there has never been viticulture
Falcó was the first to plant in the Montes de Toledo area the viongier grapea variety from the south of the Rhône that almost disappears and with which NOC wineries work today, with a wine, Mernat de NOC Blanco, inexpensive, but highly valued by the guides.
“Some white wines come out with the duality that, if you drink it fresh, you drink it accidentallythat you don’t know, with a lot of acidity and few degrees”, explains De Miguel.
The oenologist, who studied chemistry at the Autonomous University of Madrid and, later, at the Madrid Grape School, is a staunch defender of wine science and very critical of the most traditional tendencies in the world.
Tradition is of little use in an area like the Montes de Toledo in which there has never been viticulture, but in which, nevertheless, there are some weather and soil conditions excellent with which better and better wines are made. This is demonstrated by the work of wineries such as Dehesa del Carrizal –which, in 1994, explains De Miguel, managed to be the best rated wine in the Gourmet Guide–, or the most recent Pago Guijoso, Pago Finca Élez or the NOC itself.
“It is one of the few territories with acid soils, not limestone”De Miguel explains. Limestone soils are generally better, but now that it is getting hotter, the pH is getting higher and the wines are heavier. And every time we like the freshest wines. And here, although it is a very warm area, we can make very fresh wines”.
A scientific cellar
To make these wines, Carlos Galdón spares no expense. Since he acquired the enormous Manzaneque winery, formerly known as Lands of Orgaz, He has made two huge renovations. The last one was finished in 2020.
In addition to making good reds and whites, NOC is known for its sparkling wines
the oenologist Elena Rincon, who has been working with De Miguel since he became a consultant, welcomes us in Manzaneque to show us the huge winery, which has the latest technology, but also some vestiges of another time, such as huge cement jars, which are still used to make some of the wines
“The objective is control the whole processRincon explains. “We do not buy grapes from third parties, everything comes from our two vineyards in Manzaneque and Los Yébenes.”
In addition to making good reds and whites, NOC is known for its sparkling, to which it owes its new name, which comes from the expression “it is not champagne, it is not cava”. For this task, he advised the winery Jaume Notóone of the great experts in Spain in the method champagnewho worked 25 years in Codorniú.
The best recipes of Direct to the palate (Cooking)
In the future, De Miguel, always eager to try new things, plans to vinify the primitivo and zinfandel grapes, two experimental varieties that many wineries in Spain are testing, but that are not approved in any DO. Some legal limitations with which the winemaker is very critical.
“All the varieties are travelers,” he points out. “There are no autochthonous varietiesThey are all foreign. How long does a variety have to be autochthonous? What difference does it make if the Grenache traveled to the Rhône? Is there any similarity between the Garnacha from Aragón, from Toledo or the Priorato? My mission is to make the best possible wine”.
Images | Gtres
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