In September, the wine group enjoyed a wonderful day out at Bodegas Faelo, a charming family winery in the countryside
near Elche which produces the Vinos del Camp d’Elx.
We were warmly welcomed by Jamie, the fourth generation of his family to run the winery, established in 1930s when Jaime’s
great grandfather first started making wine for family and friends in their new “faeneta” or farmhouse. All of the later wine-making buildings – the fermentation room, the barrel room, bottling room – are extensions on that original farmhouse!
Today, there are just five family members, two employees, plus 15 extra staff during the harvest, which had started a couple of
weeks before our visit.
Since 2000, Jaime and his father, Jaime senior, have introduced modern advances in winemaking while keeping their traditional
methods. They call it “Selected Viticulture.”
The growing and processing of grapes is still done very much in the traditional way. The vines on the 2.5 hectares are pampered, kept free of disease with natural pest control from aromatic herbs and plants. The treading and crushing of grapes are done using the same traditional utensils including the “afollaor” container for treading the grapes. Some our group leant a hand with cabernet sauvignon grapes destined for this year’s vintage! The skins are then extracted and pressed in a century-old manual press.
None of the wine in the 4,000-litre fermentation tanks have yeast added to help fermentation – instead, it is controlled by
temperature with regular quality checks. The best wines are then aged in new barrels and then bottled on site. The bodega produces around just 10,000 litres of wine a year – rosé, red, white, and sweet.
We enjoyed a lovely tasting with lunch in the farmyard naya, served by the family. We then headed off to the shop to buy our
favourite bottles!
It really was a lovely day out. Our thanks to Pat and Brian for organising it and to all of the Faelo family for their hospitality.
Sharon Taylor
