Pepe Mendoza: Pepe’s father Enrique Mendoza founded Bodegas Enrique Mendoza in 1989 in the DO of Alicante (in the autonomia of Valencia). Today, Pepe runs the company and is the head viticulturist and winemaker. Enrique Mendoza specializes in single-vineyard Monastrells (same grape as Mourvedre).
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Being in Alicante, these Monastrells are near the ocean and high-altitude, giving you complex, herbal, elegant, high-acidity expressions of the grape. Very different from Monastrells from the more inland and lower-altitidue Jumilla, whose Monastrells typically express with higher alcohol and richer fruit. Pepe prioritizes organic and biodynamic winemaking, prioritizing hydric stress (minimal irrigation) and eschewing insecticides, herbicides, and fertilizer. Eric Asimov, the New York Times’ wine reviewer, actually wrote an awesome article on Monastrell where he blind tasted a number of them and gave Enrique Mendoza first place. View Here.
