The first thing Pepe Mendoza told me when we caught up over Zoom during harvest earlier this year was that his iPhone was broken. It’s a banal detail that Mendoza brought up only to explain the difficulties he’d initially had connecting to the sound for our call. But I’m mentioning it here because there’s something almost too on-the-nose about the fact that the gadget-destroying accident occurred while he was out working the land on one of his tractors.
The story of Mendoza’s winemaking career, after all, is of a man who has grown increasingly disillusioned with what he refers to as ‘technical’ and ‘industrial’ approaches, and who has instead become ever more focused on the land. Specifically his own piece of ‘Mediterranean’ land: the two Alicante DO vineyards where he spends so much time, whether on tractor or foot, and from which he makes a handful of beautifully poised, evocative wines that have challenged preconceptions of what Mendoza calls ‘one of the hottest parts of the hottest parts of Spain’.
Scroll down for five Pepe Mendoza wines to try
Back in August, with his microphone up and running, Mendoza’s apparently limitless enthusiasm for viticulture simply pours out in a torrent of words, as he explains how his philosophy of winemaking has evolved. ‘When I was younger, I believed the solutions were technical,’ he says. Today he’s looking for the ‘interesting point in the centre’ between laissez-faire natural winemaking and more conventional ways of working.
‘The thing about Pepe
