Anima Negra Quibia 2022

Robert Parker, 89 pts
"There was a hailstorm September 13-14, but the grapes for the 2019 Quíbia had already been picked. This sort of blanc de noirs was produced as a white, with a majority of red grapes matured in tank with lees before bottling. It's a fruit-driven and approachable white closed with a screw cap and destined for short-term consumption. It was produced in a clean and expressive way without terrible complexity. This 2019 feels riper, and the palate reveals a softer mouthfeel, tender and light. 60,000 bottles. It was bottled between January and February 2020.

Anima Negra

A winery in the Mediterranean island of Mallorca? Yes! And we're very, very grateful they exist. 

Founded in Felanitx in 1994, Ànima Negra is the result of a Mallorcan climate, terroir, and indigenous grape fusion. Its founders, Pere Obrador and Miquel Àngel Cerdà are collegue dropouts who became great self-taught winemakers. With some advisory from oenologist Francesc Grimalt (Now leading his own project), they started making wine in two barriques made from unused milk tanks in an attempt to unleash Mallorca's full winemaking potential. Needless to say, things are going well.

Pere Obrador and Miquel Àngel Cerdà, founders of Anima Negra

 Wines are produced in the old "possesio" (local term used to refer to agricultural plots) of Son Bruguera, right next to Felanitx, where buildings that date back to the 13th century still have a traditional winemaking area, used in the past to supply wine to locals.

Ànima Negra is fond of biodynamic practices, avoiding chemical pesticides or fertilizers, and producing small, concentrated fruit. Indigenous yeasts are used for almost all fermentation. As a consequence, their wines are unique, to say the least, elegant, and "sincere and special" as they like to say.

They own or control about 135 vineyard plots, which they get their grapes from, in less than a 6-mile radius from the winery. Vines are 50 to 85 years old and often surrounded by fruit trees. Thanks to its current or former owners' determination, these vineyards survived multiple generous purchase offers from investors involved in the island's Real Estate boom, who had no intention to conserve and would have likely pulled them all out.