The Terraces of Llíber

Pepe Mendoza grew up in one of Alicante’s best-known wineries, making wine for an international market. In 2016 he chose another path: smaller-scale wines rooted in a single landscape, native grapes and old dry-farmed terraces. Now he dry-farms old stone terraces near Llíber: organic, by hand, on native vines that are in some cases a hundred years old. He is bringing back varieties this region had nearly forgotten, on land that most people had decided was too steep, too dry and too much work to be worth farming. The terraces are the argument. They were built by people who thought this hillside was worth the effort, and he agrees with them.