Mallorca is a Paradise For a lot of a drinker, with great thirst, and a little bit of money as well as for the medium-sized sector. No longer is buying a farmhouse, and tries more and more often, as a winemaker.
In Hamburg Alexandra and Sören Grahe living in this stylish waterfront. She works as a personnel Manager, he as a Controller. But that’s not enough, the two as a challenge. Maybe it is because they have no children and therefore are risk averse.
It is February and still so Sunny in Mallorca that Jackets are superfluous. The 48-year-old runs like a young girl with sneakers and Jeans on their own soil. Every month, she comes here for a few days. Pride in your little “winery” is your view. For a year, the trained psychologist is a part-time winemaker and is following the Trend. Every day you learn.
“On the so far little-known growing region of Mallorca, Mediterranean sea-grape-Malsavia and white Spanish Macabeo-grape as well as Syrah, but also Chardonnay and Sauvignon on the island are very popular,” she says. The wine is sold, thanks to the 14 million tourists. Overall, there are on the island already 90 wineries, more and more often with foreign capital financed. These investors see the but often only as a Hobby – as the Grahes. Only a few make it into the international Export.
In Germany the money and put it in the Mallorcan wine investing: Alexandra and Sören Grahe hobby winemakers are earning.
Part-time winemakers in Mallorca – a new German Trend
This is due to the fact that many like to drink wine, but nothing else of agriculture understand. The Mallorca-based German company of wine value to chief winemaker Henri Fink advises the Hamburger and it was your adventure. The greatest influence in terms of viticulture, the locals have, but still, if even in the Background as Kellerer and Oenologists.
You look back on a long Tradition, in the 19th century.Century, however, was interrupted by a phylloxera plague abruptly. Only in the last few decades, is invested with the rise of tourism in the wine. The market leader, José Ferrer – a tradition winery in Binissalem, Inca, grows already in the fifth Generation of wine-and most of the cultivation surfaces.
In contrast, Grahes “WeinFeldSineu S. L. is” more clearly. The couple bought for 80,000 euros approximately 7000 square meters of growing area in the interior of the island, Sineu, where the Land is still relatively cheap. Here you have also for some years a small town house: “We knew what we were in for”.
In the southwest, where currently, the majority of holiday real estate to be sold and, according to a study by Porta Mallorcan prices in the past year by a further 16 per cent have increased, could the Pair not even a Garage to buy, because the prices per Square metre move on a double level between 5700 and 8700 Euro.
High initial investment needs of the full climate
But tax is not the purchase for future wine growers, only the plot. DieGrahes paid in the past year, another 40,000 Euro for the planting of the right on the country road to the underlying ground. A further 10,000 Euro, the annual maintenance costs. If 2020 is first pressed, then the Couple must grab again neatly in the purse.
Mallorca wine the same way to claim is to grow fully as elsewhere: For the necessary investment it takes a lot of money.
Until then, you can Finance your adventure with the vine-sponsorships, the new Crowdfunding Wine in Mallorca. 63 people have joined them already. From 50 euros in the year, there is the wine home, and when the godfather is on the island, he can visit with the Grahes the field and Tapas under the sun. To shipping of own bottles, it lasts but for three years.
Long financial breath is not only from the growers is necessary. Not only the Grahes Finance with sponsorships, but also of the more prestigious wineries such as the Castell Miquel. For the owner, Michael Popp, the winery is now a large company employing more than 20 people. In addition to many Events and weddings, also for the German popular Christmas market takes place here in the mountains in December.
Popp has since 1994 a natural healing plant on the island. He knows the ground and also dealing with the authorities and Locals. However, he is like the Grahes only a part-time Resident on the island, as it has in Germany, among other things, the nature of pharmaceutical company Bionorica.
Popp’s Bodega wraps in place and turn the entire process and brings each year, 180 000 bottles on the market, which are mainly sold on the island and exported to Germany.
The multilingual Michele Baldassarre, head of Popp’s wine – and gastronomy-shops, in his absence, together with a Mallorcan Winemakers, smiles at the question of whether the Castell throw before the Tramuntana mountain range really of money: “of Course it is profitable”. But the trained chef admits, the need for investments in the millions were necessary: “It was a chicken factory. Popp has rebuilt it completely in 1999.” Since 2002, the wines that are now among the noble drops of the island occur here.
A business also for women
For wine experts, Jaime, Sancho, Mallorcan wines, however, are still too expensive: “The price-performance ratio is not right.” The Mallorcan Sommelier Daniel Arias explains, wearum this is so: “It is due to the fact that the production runs out there sometimes is like a manufactory.”
Majorcan Crowdfunding: Who does not want to grow their own wine, you can sponsor a vine.
The bottle costs between 10 and 30 Euro in retail: “But despite the high price, only a few wines remain at the end of the year in the warehouse,” says Arias, the head of the Sommelier Association of the island. Almost everything is sold to the tourists in luxury Hotels, Restaurants and on yachts, where the price often plays no role.
But also the export business, could soon be a massive boost. Because the foreign financial injections, the infrastructure grows, the Cooperative will be revived and the modernisation of the production is completed, which will reduce the cost in the long term.
“Here, more and more women play an important role”; reported Sancho. To Christina schallock, who has given your winery Xaloc his respect. The child of Munich came 20 years ago on the island, in order to manage a Golf club: “Now I’m old and far away from the family, the big money, I do it too, but the life between olive trees, wild goats and vines makes me happy.”
Whether Alexandra Grahe will be similarly successful in the Majorcan wine business, remains to be seen. The enthusiasm and creativity of the personnel specialist has: “If it doesn’t work, then we still have the Land that we can sell again,” she says.
The hamburger sits with her husband Sören on their small terrace on the field and the sun can Shine in the face. Her “vineyard” is now like a Baby for the two of them. But also you don’t know what farming after the years of the vines-it will come out, and the godfather.