2023 Las Pizarras Fabla #506 Garnacha x Syrah Calatayud 750 ml

Las Pizarras is the project of Raíces Ibéricas, a winery launched in 2020 when Belgian entrepreneur Mark Schiettekat stepped in to save a local co-operative in the village of Maluenda from closure. His vision was to build a range organized like Burgundy—regional blends at the base, single-village wines in the middle, single-vineyard bottlings at the top—all of it rooted in the old Garnacha bush vines that blanket Calatayud’s high-altitude slopes.

Calatayud sits at the heart of Aragón, about 90 kilometers southwest of Zaragoza, and has as strong a claim as anywhere on earth to being the place where Garnacha was born. Archaeological excavations at the ancient Celtiberian settlement of Segeda, just outside the town, turned up amphorae containing Garnacha seeds and leaves dating back to roughly 153 BCE—pre-dating written records of the grape anywhere in the world. The variety has been growing in these rugged hills for over two millennia.

The vineyards of the Las Pizarras range sit on slate and quartzite deposited by glacier activity during the Tertiary period—stony, nutrient-poor terrain with exceptional drainage that forces bush-trained Garnacha vines to work hard for every drop of moisture. “Las Pizarras” is Spanish for “the slates,” and the name is earned: it’s this geology that gives the wines their mineral spine and their lift.

Winemaker Carlos Rubén favors gentle extraction and a restrained hand with oak. The Fabla is the range’s regional blend—80% Garnacha and 20% Syrah, fermented at cool temperatures to preserve varietal freshness, with only 30% of the wine spending three months in barrel before bottling. The result leads with fruit and slate, not wood.

“Fabla” is an ancient language spoken in the mountains of northern Aragón for over a thousand years—today only about 12,000 people still use it. A deliberate nod to something rare and worth preserving. The “506” is more literal: the number of the tank where this particular blend was first assembled.