Bodegas Xaloc

Bodegas Xaloc is a very small winery in the hills outside Pollença, where the Serra de Tramuntana runs out and gives way to quiet, rolling country. The name works twice over: xaloc is the Mallorcan word for the mild south-easterly wind that makes the hot months on the island bearable — and every vine on the estate is set facing exactly that direction. Behind the business stands Christina Schallock. She came to the island as manager of the Pollença golf club and looked out of her office window at the very hills she would later buy. Of her seven hectares of land, part of it stony and hard to work, a good three hectares are under vine, ringed by the dry-stone walls typical of Mallorca and by macchia scrub. The motto from the outset was small and fine, quality rather than quantity, and nothing about that has changed. The vineyard above Pollença The soil is mineral-rich and stony, and it is intensively tended. The rows carry Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Syrah for the reds, Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc for the whites. Alongside them grows Gorgollassa, an old Mallorcan grape, which here carries two wines of its own. Picking is done entirely by hand and selectively, the whites first, the reds afterwards. Only grapes from the estate's own vineyard are processed, and processed on site — there is no journey to someone else's cellar, because the bodega stands in the middle of the vines. Fermentation runs temperature-controlled in stainless steel tanks over several weeks, which leaves the wines a fine, natural residual sweetness. The wines of Bodegas Xaloc Five wines come out of the house. Monada is a Cabernet Sauvignon with notes of black fruit and a fine touch of chocolate, ruby to garnet red. El Colmo is a Syrah, darker in tone, with blackberry, bitter chocolate and black olive on the nose. Both mature separately by variety in wooden casks of French, Hungarian and American oak; only afterwards do the winemaker, the cellar master and the oenologist decide together on the blend. The red spends a good year and a half to two years in cask before it is bottled on the estate itself. On the lighter side there is the Blanco of Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc, gently pressed and slowly fermented cool, with a touch of citrus. The Rosado of Gorgollassa and Cabernet Sauvignon smells and tastes of raspberry. And the Verano is pure Gorgollassa, a summer wine the colour of ripe apricots. All of them carry the Vi de la Terra Mallorca designation of origin. Olive oil from its own grove Wine is not the only produce. Three hundred olive trees stand on the estate, and their harvest yields a small quantity of virgin oil each year — more for regulars and friends of the house than for the open market. The house recommends it neat, with a little salt and a piece of white bread, before a meal. Tasting with the winemaker Xaloc can be visited, but it is not set up for passing trade. Christina Schallock runs private tastings by individual arrangement in the middle of the vineyard, for families, groups of friends and small parties; if you want to come, it is best to arrange it beforehand. That is precisely the appeal: you do not get the standard tour, you get the person who made the wine. If you would rather take the bottles with you, you can buy them at the estate — and shipping to Germany, Switzerland and beyond is possible too.