Domaine DexAie
Castilla y Leon
“God Help Us!”
The war cry echoes through the Sierre de Gredos, a mountain range so expansive it can’t be limited to less than four Spanish provinces. Made of a wildly dense formation of granite that Excalibur could not seem to pierce, it would seem absolutely loco for vineyards to exist here. Yet, centuries ago, settlers landed in Navarrevisca, a plain between the rocky hills where, in warm weather no doubt there could be huntable animals attracted to one of the only sources of flora available. Autumn and winter brought powerful, cutting winds, the summer’s welcome drizzles turning to shards of natural glass.
“God Help Us!”
“Nature is the boss,” Emmanuel Campana admits, a grin as he translates “DexAie” for us: the eternal war cry, an old phrase paying homage to their keeper much as the Greeks and Romans had their Gods. “We must respect the old folks; there’s a reason they are here, and have persisted.”
With the altitude well over one thousand meters, Emmanuel admits that for he and his partner Carmen, making wine in the Alto Alberche region of the Sierra de Gredos is “flipping a coin, or an all-in bet. We could make great wines with the old vineyards, but hail, frost, anything could happen.”
After meeting in Chile, the two 30-somethings - Carmen a native of Cadiz, and Emmanuel an Argentinian-born of Spanish descent - worked harvests on both hemispheres consecutively for five years running. With the pull toward each other, as well as from their shared passion, when the opportunity presented itself in Navarrevisca, they were ready to take on whatever challenges could be presented.
“Sometimes we don’t know just what will happen,” Carmen admits. After a tireless task of consolidating some 300 plots - buying and trading deeds from families who would have microscopic plots for personal consumption - to craft their now-43 hectare ownership (14 currently planted to vineyards), the couple has in their adept hands some vines that date back almost a century. “We had to revive and recover several abandoned vines,” Emmanuel says, “Lost vineyards that had been forgotten.” Here, he pauses, and you can sense his mental calculus in crafting the next sentence. “It’s a challenge; we have to - and want to - mix the tradition with the modernity, what we have learned with all our experience.” His eyes shift to Carmen, and they share a knowing smile, understanding what has brought them together, here, and what will keep them here: “All of this, without losing the sense of the culture.”
“God Help Us!”
VITICULTURE & VINIFICATION
The total of the 14 hectares under vine are exclusively planted to Garnacha, save for a couple Tempranillo vines - “For the birds,” Emmanuel says. While surrounded by rock faces, the vineyards themselves are mostly on a plateau with a subtle slope. Sand and silt sit on top of granitic subsoils, the silt a subtle reminder of the Paleozoic era, when the entire region was covered by ocean until the Central System, a range of mountains of which the Sierra de Gredos belongs, was created some two million years ago.
With the aforementioned harsh winds that permeate into the Domaine’s vineyards through a “window” in the mountain range, Emmanuel was quick to point out the nature of the training: Gobelet. As it is a natural progression of the Alberello training method seen in other windy sites (Mount Etna, for one), Gobelet was largely used in the ancient vines since it provided some shelter for the clusters. WIth the steadiness of the winds throughout the growing season, there is little disease pressure, even with the annual 700-1200 millimeters of rainfall. “Only with a very late rainfall, would we see any risk of botrytis,” says Emmanuel, “And in 2024 & 2025 we had no rain whatsoever during harvest.”
Gobelet necessitates manual farming, and in the old vineyards no tractors can be used due to spacing and the large rocks throughout. Emmanuel and Carmen are dedicated to retaining their fully manual farming, while with the newer plantings allowing space for a tractor, though only to assist with plowing. “We don’t ever hope to have large yields,” Carmen assuredly points out, “And we watch the vines to make sure the best bunches survive; less, grapes, yes, but bigger grapes. We want juicy, tight bunches.
After the harvest, the plots are vinified separately, preserving the stems for much of the clusters and covering the top with de-stemmed grapes. The grapes are then foot-trodden, and allowed to ferment & macerate with the skins for 1-2 months. After a quick pressing, the juice is aged in neutral oak barrels, before being blended and aged in larger oak vessels for up to two years.
The duo seem intent on further sectioning off parcels as their newer plantings come on line, and as they attain further grasp on the individuality of their vineyards in coming vintages. “ We need to wait to produce,” they say. “Alto Alberche” is a “village” style wine, sourced from 3-4 different growers in addition to their own vines. “La Camilleja” translates to “Small Road”, and is sourced entirely from their own vineyards at 1100-1200 feet altitude.
