Myotragus 2012- an Interesting Surprise from Majorca

We have much more wine than we can drink. We haven’t bought much lately and prefer to draw down our large inventory of bottles unless we get a really serious recommendation.

The other day we decided to have steak for lunch.  My wife started rummaging around our wine cellar and brought up a bottle of red that I didn’t even remember either buying or receiving as a gift. (Note to self:  put tags on the bottles so we remember where and when we got it, and in the case of a gift, who gifted it.)

The bottle was Myotragus 2012, a ‘vino de la Tierra’ (regional wine from Majorca, one of Spain’s Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean).

The label, features a drawing of a shaggy-looking goat.  My curiosity was piqued so I looked up ‘myotragus’ and discovered that it was an extinct genus (Myotragus balearicus, Bate 1909) of goat-antelope that lived on the Balearic Islands.

I thought the brand name and the label design were creative but was skeptical about the wine itself.  Although it had been cellared properly, I thought “Eleven years old…it has got to be gone by now, but let’s open it and see.  If it’s not drinkable, we use it for cooking or to add to our vinegar jug.”

Surprise!  It was not only drinkable, it was great, showing mainly black cherry notes with a slight pruney aroma, a sign of slight oxidation. Full-bodied on the palate, it went very well with our steaks.

The back label said “red wine made from grapes from the local varieties callet and mantonegro, together with syrah, merlot and cabernet sauvignon.  Aged in Hungarian, American and French oak for 15 months.”  

I often wonder why winemakers feel the need to add international varieties to local grapes, especially in this case given the good reputation of both callet and mantonegro, but the blend seemed to work in this case. I reminded myself to look out for 100% callet in the future.

Perhaps my friend Mikel Hudin, who knows more about these wines than anyone else I know, can recommend a few.

I checked Vivino (https://www.vivino.com and learned that the wine was produced in 2008/09/10/12/14/16 and 2018 by the Pinavaley winery.

Wine Searcher (https://www.wine-searcher.com) revealed that the brand was theoretically available at Vinos y Yo on the island of Majorca.  It might be more widely distributed but after ten years, a production run of 14,000 would probably be depleted.

In any case, if you happen to visit Majorca, take some time to look for this brand as well as others from the little-known but interesting appellations from the Balearic Islands.