Finca Sandoval Fundamentalista

Profile & Story

Finca Sandoval was created from scratch in 1998 at Ledana, in the Manchuela, by El Mundo editor and wine writer Victor de la Serna. Since 2019 it has belonged to the Garcia-Cordero group with Javi Revert as winemaker, and the estate has pivoted away from its founding Syrah towards the indigenous Bobal and its old field-blend neighbours. The 26 hectares are certified organic, planted on sandy clay-limestone at around 750 metres on the slopes of the Cuenca mountains, with vines over eighty years old. Fundamentalista is the most traditional wine of the Manchuela, a Bobal planted more than eighty years ago together with at least four other varieties, roughly thirty per cent of them white grapes. Everything is picked together so the blend is settled in the vineyard rather than the cellar, partially destemmed, co-fermented on natural yeasts through a fifteen-day maceration, then matured ten months in clay tinajas with no oak at all, at 13% alcohol.