Mallorca is the Germans’ favourite island, but Mallorcan wine took a long time to gain recognition in this country. Of course, this was in part due to the late arrival of the Spanish wine revolution on the island. When the first auteur wines were already being bottled in Rioja, Mallorca’s wine industry was still in slumber, with less than half a dozen bodegas still bottling wine in the 1980s. It is only in the last 20 years that the area under cultivation has suddenly multiplied, to 3000 hectares today. In addition to the growing thirst of Mallorca’s discerning visitors, the far-sighted political measure of linking many a building permit to the existence of an agricultural use also contributed to this. Today, around 70 producers are active on the island, large and small, long-established and newcomers with an international flair.
The brand new book Mallorca & Wine portrays 55 of these establishments – written and photographed by a renowned trio: Jürgen Mathäß, who wrote the portraits of the bodegas and the people behind them, has long been known among German wine journalists as an expert on Spain. Photographer Thilo Weimar also has an excellent reputation for his atmospheric images of vines, winegrowers and wine. Last but not least, the threads for this book were brought together by Wolf Wilder, who is remembered in Germany as the co-founder of the Spanish wine shop Wein & Vinos in Berlin, and who now runs the boutique hotel Finca Can Coll in Sóller on Mallorca. Master of Wine Romana Echensperger and the former head sommelier of the legendary three-star restaurant El Bulli, Ferran Centelles, were invited to give introductory speeches.
Mallorcan local Patriotism
The wealth of information and the animating way in which it is presented make this book a guide that belongs in the suitcase of every wine-loving traveller to Mallorca. Thanks to the comprehensible descriptions of the respective strengths and special features of the wineries, the book can serve as a compass that points the way precisely to the preferred types of wine – but also to vacation experiences that you will talk about when you return home.
It is clear from the book that the initiative came from a person who brings both an international perspective to the subject as well as downright Mallorcan local patriotism; Wilder, who has lived on the island since 2018, maintains a wine list in his hotel in Sóller that only lists champagne and around 160 Mallorcan wines and nothing else.
Reading the book and tasting the wines, you can tell: this enthusiasm is utterly sincere.