The Maiadeu, an exceptional wine of only three hundred bottles that managed to evade fire

It all began twenty years ago. Encarna Castillo (Cadaqués, 1974) and Ton Mata (Sant Sadurní d'Anoia, 1970) bought a small plot in the Muntanya Negra of Cadaqués, seven thousand square meters (0.7 hectares), on which they planted vine by vine the cuttings gifted to them by local winemakers. It was a shared couple's dream, to return to Encarna's native land with Ton's winemaking and oenological knowledge, as he works with his cousins at Recaredo. They knew it wouldn't be easy, but they didn't imagine it would take fifteen years to produce their first wine. Nor that they would have to accept the wild climate of Empordà, the wind, the drought, and also nature itself, with genets, foxes, badgers, wild boars, and birds that have been eating a large part of their grape bunches vintage after vintage. Last year the vineyard narrowly escaped fire, as it acted as a firebreak along with the adjacent plot, which belongs to a Swiss friend named Sylvan; and it also managed to recover from a wasp attack. Today, Maiadeu, the wine that never says goodbye to Cadaqués, is an exceptional white wine, around three hundred bottles depending on the year, which is served in the country's best restaurants.“Taste it, tell me what you think,” Encarna says to me while Ton sets up a table, three chairs, and an awning in the vineyard itself. We could be on a paradisiacal island in Greece, but no, we are in the Black Mountain, green vineyards by the sea of Cadaqués with its white church, always simple and imposing at the same time. “It’s a wine we’d like to give ten more years to, but it’s also very good now,” they comment. Maiadeu is a Mediterranean wine that gains depth and complexity over time, and has significant acidity. The grape varieties are white and grey carignan, lledoner (as garnacha is called in Empordà) white and red. “Every year we’ve changed the blend, depending on the production of the vines; this year it was 60% carignan and 40% lledoner,” says Ton, who comments that on the back label they always indicate the day they harvested the grapes. Wine interprets Empordà

El Maiadeu is the wine with which Ton Mata and Encarna Castillo interpret Empordà. “We made it with great respect, with an alcohol content of 12.5 degrees; depending on the year, fewer degrees”. In the five years they have been bottling it, they have produced a small quantity, ranging from one hundred and fifty to four hundred bottles. “The four hundred bottle one is from 2024, and we don't know if we'll release it because we're not convinced, because the 2024 harvest was very complicated; we were coming from extreme drought”, they explain. They hope to check its evolution, and if they don't like it, they won't put it on the market. El Maiadeu is a wine that has been very well received, especially in the restaurants of Cadaqués, l'Empordà, Girona. “They have it in restaurants that are linked to the territory, to Cap de Creus; in Cadaqués itself, they have it in the restaurants Es Baluard, El Vincle, Es Racó and El Compartir”, they comment. Beyond Cadaqués, at el Miramar and Els Pescadors, in Llançà; Casamar de Llafranc; Villamás, in S'Agaró; Celler de Can Roca; Ca l’Enric; Les Cols from Olot, and in Barcelona, the Shanghai, by the Kao family; the Dos Palillos, by Albert Raurich, who is from Cadaqués on his mother's side; Los Hermanos Torres; the Disfrutar; the Gresca. “We know of other restaurants that would like to have it, but we don't even have enough for ourselves; from the 2021 vintage, we only have six bottles”.

On the menu of some of these restaurants the price is €90. “We know it’s a lot of money, but it’s a wine that is very difficult to make; we would almost say it’s a romantic project, because we know we will never recoup the cost”. Last year’s harvest was the first with which they were able to fill a 600-liter barrel. So eight hundred bottles will come out for the first time. And the 2026 harvest, this year’s, a little more. Despite this, it is a testimonial wine, made on terraces where irrigation is a work of rural engineering and architecture. “One day we found a cistern, which may be hundreds of years old, that can accumulate the water that flows down the terrace from the mountain, and it is from here that we irrigate with the help of pipes,” they explain. They also have water containers, because the cistern, buried in the ground, fills with rainwater, of course. And if the wine is testimonial, the vineyard is heroic: last year the fire that passed by cut it. “The mayor of Cadaqués called us to explain what was happening, and she already reassured us by telling us that the vineyard had dodged it, but until the next day when we could go up and see it with our own eyes, it was all nerves”. Both Ton and Encarna have the feeling that to make Maiadeu they are fighting against nature even though Cadaqués has always had vineyards and olive trees, but now, if you look at the landscape that surrounds them, everything is wild except for some olive groves. “We are very alone, with our companion Sylvan, who makes his wines next door, but all around there is only the life of nature”. In 1956, due to the winter frosts, cultivation was abandoned; in the 60s tourism arrived, which forever changed life in the town.

To finish, the grapes they harvest are taken to the Pujol Cargol winery, owned by David Pujol. And the vines they planted there come from old vineyards belonging to Salvador Batlle, from the Còsmic winery; also from others belonging to David Pujol himself, also from Ester Nin. “They were very generous with us, and thanks to them we grafted the Cariñena and Garnacha onto American rootstock”. In Penedès, they would have harvested grapes after three years, but in Empordà it took four. The first harvest was in 2021. And today, summer of 2026, Maiadeu is a sought-after wine. This summer, they started harvesting on August 6th at four in the morning, and by three in the afternoon they had finished. They transported the grapes in a refrigerated van to the Pujol Cargol winery, where they pressed them. By nine in the evening of the same day, they had finished everything. We too have reached the end of breakfast and conversation. Ton and Encarna say they want to live many years to make more Maiadeus, and also to grow the wine project they have in Penedès, named Bufadors, like the place in Cadaqués made of holes and rocks where the wind blows, and which is the peak of the Black Mountain. “Here, sitting, contemplating the landscape, is where we thought of the name for our personal project, for our wines, which will be what we pass on to our two sons,” they say. Penedès and Cadaqués, linked by Encarna and Ton, who respect, adore, and interpret them. Long live those who love the land.