Can you tell me where you are from?
I’m from Mallorca, Coll d’en Rebassa near the airport, but I’ve spent many years in Alaro. I have always lived here in Mallorca.
Did your family work with wine?
No, I was the first person in my family to work with wine.
When did you get into the wine industry?
I was 25 when I started to work with wine. I started at a cash and carry drinks company, selling wine. I’d never tried wine before, the company trained me initially and I’ve been studying ever since. Now I have more than 25 years of experience in the wine sector and I’m passionate about it.
I started my own business selling and distributing wine to restaurants and hotels 3 years ago and we have over 300 wine and sparkling wines, many of them exclusive. I’m proud of being able to offer advice when it comes to creating personalised and specialised menus for each customer.
I travel to Spain to source the wine. I mainly sell wine from the Peninsula and some international, but mainly Spanish wine and Mallorquin wine. The restaurants and hotels here want Mallorquin wine but mainly for tourists, people from Mallorca consider the wine here too expensive so they don’t drink it. I also sell wine from Formentera, Menorca and Ibiza.
Anything you’re working on for the future?
We have been preparing a new website that went live in November. Hotels, restaurants and specialist shops can now go onto the website and read about the different wines and then buy those they like as there will be information on each of them. I go to a lot of wine fairs to try different wines. I went to Playa de Muro last week, there were 48 different wines. It’s a lot of wine, I try and then I spit it out. In a month there’s a fair in Madrid which will have the best wines from Spain.
There’s a huge wine fair in Dusseldorf in March which has wines from all over the world. It’s difficult for me to go in March as I’m so busy with work here, that’s why I go to Madrid instead, and in Barcelona in February. It’s important that I try as many wines as possible, but in some fairs there are 97 to try in one day, it’s impossible.
What is your favourite wine?
This is the question everyone asks me! I don’t have just one, it depends on the moment, the company, what I’m eating. In Mallorca there are really good wines, but also in Spain, France, Argentina and Chile. The problem with some Mallorquin wines is that the quality ones are sometimes expensive.
A wine that I really enjoy is a red from bodega Ribas called, ‘Descofio de la Gente Que No Bebe’, ‘I Distrust People Who do not Drink’.
What is a wine tip you can share?
With a tuna carpaccio it’s better to have a young red wine, not a white.
Is Mallorca a good terroir for producing wine?
It is good but the problem is when the climate changes not all of the varietals can adapt.
And finally what did you eat yesterday, breakfast, lunch and dinner? And where?
For breakfast I start my day with fruit and kefir. There’s kefir agua but I prefer it with milk.
For almuerzo, lunch, I had a brochetta de ternera, marinated beef skewers, with vegetables and salad. I normally I eat at clients’ restaurants for lunch, I love my job!
For dinner I normally eat at home, just typical Mallorquin food, pa amb oli. Most families eat pa amb oli at dinner or in summer we eat ensalada de trampó (the name trampó comes from the Mallorcan word ‘trempar’, which means to season). And to go with it I had a couple of glasses of French wine from a region called Saumur in the Lloire Valley. The world of wine is fascinating.