Who: Cinta Moreso Galiana and Carlos Ingala
What: Terra Alta / Gredos
Where: Vilalba dels Arcs / El Tiemblo
When: Since 2021
La Nave de los Locos is a new project by two young and super enthusiastic producers who are parlaying their love of wine and nature into production. Cinta is a translator and trained sommelier from Catalunya, Carlos is a biologist, who specialised in Ecosystems Restoration, and photographer from Madrid. Cinta wanted to supplement her sommelier knowledge so went to study viticulture and winemaking with Oriol Artigas in Alella. But she found that studying the theory didn’t scratch her itch. So with the help of producer friends she was able to find a small parcel to work in Terra Alta near Vilalba dels Arcs from she and Carlos produced their first wine in 2021.
At the same time in 2022 they moved to Madrid and found some vineyards to work near El Tiemblo in the Gredos and space to make wine in the old Co-operative that’s been co-opted by several experienced natural winemakers including Daniel Ramos and Viños Ambiz.
Both Cinta and Carlos come to their work with a deep love of nature in addition to a love of wine. Their work in the vineyard is above all about regeneration of the soils, to recover abandoned parcels, as well as support existing but poorly maintained parcels. In the cellar they work without any entrants, without added yeasts or sulfites or anything else with the intention of respecting and expressing the terroir as purely as possible.
We met in the summer of 2022 when Cinta was on hand at the cellar in El Tiemblo to show us bottles of Viños Ambiz left for us by Fabio who was absent on the day and who was keen for us to get to know “the new kids” in the cellar.
The climate in Terra Alta is interesting. It’s thought of as hot and arid. Indeed, the summers are warm and mostly clear; but the winters are long, very cold and windy. The average rainfall per year is 500 mm. Temperatures typically vary from 0°C to 30° C and is rarely below -4°C or above 34°C. There is a nice fall in temperature at night —even during summer, nights are smooth or even fresh. In spring and summer, a strong, dry and usually cold wind called Cierzo is a powerful ally to control the humidity and freshen the vineyards.
As of 2023, Cinta will offer three wines, two Grenache Noir and one Albillo, from the Gredos.
