David Bowie and a bottle of Empordà wine

They are two Dutch winemakers: Dido, she; Jurriaan, he, who, after traveling the world's wine scene, ended up in Alt Empordà and fell in love with the land. If you see them, so happy and untamed, you'll understand the kind of wines they make. This happens sometimes; you see the winemaker and you understand the wine they make or made. Whenever I've been lucky enough to taste Didier Daggenau's wines with someone, I've shown them that picture of him—with his Viking beard and hair—wearing a headscarf, standing in the middle of the vineyard. The wine is what he was.

The same is true of the wine in our glasses. Dido and Jurriaan, of Vinyes Tortuga, say that they "make wine the same way they live: wildly, freely, and deeply connected to the land." They work at the rhythm of nature, not at the rhythm of humans. The wine they make, then, is "natural," said with all the caution and joy that entails. They don't filter, add, or remove anything; they simply—in their own words—"bottle." The yeasts, of course, are native.

They work and live in Rabós, where they found a farmhouse for sale with 9.5 hectares of vineyards. To acquire it, they undertook a crowdfundingwhich is the term we use to describe crowdfunding, and they bought the house, land, and second-hand winemaking equipment. The first harvest came out in 2018. Now, they have just bought the old Sant Julià cooperative,a beautiful building, which they have renamed Analog Fruit.We'll see if, as a testing ground, it takes them beyond wine. Vinyes Tortuga, it needs to be said, has had the advice and help of an extraordinary winemaker like Joan Ramon Escoda.

The vineyards have everything that Empordà vineyards should have, Dido tells me with her Dutch accent. They're close to the sea, about twenty kilometers away, so what you get in the glass is a wine with salinity. The humidity from this sea helps the vineyards. The Tramontana, that wind that sometimes wreaks havoc, cools the wine from the heat. The soil is very similar to that of Priorat, with slate, and we'll find that in the glass too.

A David Bowie album

Dido and Jurrian, like some other winegrowers we have found on these pages (I'm thinking now of Hungry Heart, which we tried not too long ago.They put the names of albums or songs they like on the bottles. The wine we have in our glass today is named after the fourth album by our beloved Bowie, Hunky Dory, which means "to be alright." I would say that the wine we're tasting today and the album it's named after have things in common. Hunky Dory Musical biographer David Buckley said that "its easy listening status and conventional musical sensibility have detracted from the fact that, lyrically, the album lays the groundwork for Bowie's future career." I couldn't agree more. "Easy" is often considered a demerit rather than a compliment. There are great works of art, like this album, that are easy and yet, or perhaps because of that, unique and extraordinary. Who can resist HeroesAnd there are wines that are also easy to drink, which I consider a great compliment. Today's wine is also easy to drink, and this is its great virtue. A natural wine, well-made, and, like the album, it paves the way for the wines of the future from this restless couple. They say, they never tire of saying, that "they learn with each harvest." They listen, they respect, and they do so with a peripheral vision of what comes from abroad and is embraced here. I, that Garnacha so Empordà, so Mediterranean, would enjoy it with some good bread with tomato and cured meats. In fact, the other day, reading Trini Gilbert's article about Provisiones Gresca, the delicatessen of Rafa Peña and Mireia NavarroI thought this wine would be a good match, for the wonders they work.

All the wines from this winery are named after albums or songs by great musicians, like, to mention another favorite of mine, Jeff Buckley. In this case, Jeff Buckley inspires Mojo Pin, a wine made from Grenache and Marselan. I've noticed that many people who love wine also love other arts, especially music. Music goes with wine, always, and in this case, of course, I wholeheartedly recommend that you try Hunky Dory while listening to the Hunky Dory

Thanks to this page, I'm discovering wines I like and, above all, winemakers I admire. Dido and Jurriaan, so cheerful, so genuine, are the kind of people you'd want as friends. Enjoy the wine with the album, enjoy the album with the wine.