Jose Ant. Garcia

Jose Antonio García and his wife Julia Peña García (JAG) are at the forefront of the next generation of vignerons in Bierzo…

leading the charge towards wines of place and definition. Their familial roots in Bierzo are fundamental to them, as they do all of the work in the vineyards themselves, which is signified by the term viticultor on their bottles. Jose’s mother is a native of Valtuille de Abajo, and his father is a native of Corullón. Together, Jose and Julia’s families have owned vineyards in Bierzo for generations. All of their wines are hand-harvested, foot-crushed, and vinified very carefully with native fermentation and without manipulation.

Like many families who left the countryside for better opportunities in the cities, Jose spent his formative years in Barcelona, where he worked in restaurants and gained valuable perspective and experience with fine wine. Jose gained important experience in Bierzo apprenticing under a well-known winemaker in the region, returning for good in 2009 to recuperate his family’s vineyard holdings in the tiny village of Valtuille de Abajo. 

Jose’s first commercial vintage of his iconic Unculín Mencía de Valtuille was in 2011, after two vintages of perfecting his expression. Their cuvée Unculín is a fresh, vin de soif-style Bierzo that offers an antidote to overblown, internationally-styled wines previously made in the region. Unculín is a Vino de Villa wine from over 80 different organically-grown small plots that are family-owned in the village of Valtuille de Abajo from 500m to 650m elevation, planted with 60 to 100-year-old traditional bush vines from native varieties. JAG’s minerality-driven Unculín echoes the traditions of co-fermentation in the Bierzo region while pushing the envelope of possibilities. Unculín brings similar energy to Bierzo as the Cru Beaujolais movement in France.

In the spirit of elevating their family holdings and with an inexhaustible work ethic, Jose and Julia set out recuperating historic vineyards by hand, recovering them one by one from the stranglehold of wild ivy. It’s a monumental work considering the 25ha of indigenous, old vines they own in Valtuille de Abajo and Corullón, and the fact that they are doing all of the work themselves. In the same way, by working out of a tiny, crumbling building hundreds of years old in Valtuille de Abajo, Jose and Julia have brought the structure back to life by hand, stone by stone, building new walls and a new future from the rubble of previous generations. Renewal and rebirth are themes that run deep throughout the very soul of these wines. Finally, their hard work has paid off, and their wines have arrived.