Ute Mergner from the ETU Bodega in “Patría” outside of Vejer, hailes from Munich in Germany and was working as an Interior Designer on projects for clients such as IKEA, when the wander lust came upon her and her partner Hans Nerlinger, an Architect. Having searched worldwide for a place to settle, Ute and Hans found themselves in the Andalucian pueblo blanco of Vejer de la Frontera sitting in Plaza San Francisco. It was a eureka moment and the pair settled in Patría where they bought 10 hectares of land.

Ute and Hans came to Andalucia to do something different, not to grow vines and make wine. In fact, it was the last thing on their minds as they settled in to their new environment. But of course, they always loved good food and excellent wines.

Then one day in August, Ute was looking at their surroundings and said to Hans “gosh it’s a bit colourless now the heat of the summer has taken over, we need to get some green out there to look at” She started to think, “what is green but does not need water”? Low and behold, vines came to mind. So, really as a greenery project, Ute started to grow 1 hectare of vines. She knew nothing about it and had never been involved in vine growing before, nor did she come from a wine family, but as she says “I thought let´s try it and at least we will have something pretty to look at and maybe something good to drink”.

Ute started to research. With the land being so close to the Atlantic it has very special properties not seen in the normal wine lands further north and inland. Ute started to experiment with Sauvignon Blanc, Siraz and Tempranillo varieties of grape and then added Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Tintilla de Rota. The latter being the only grape exclusive to the Cadiz area.

The Atlantic influence prevents the grapes getting heavy on sugar and therefore, alcohol, as they do further inland and the resulting wine is light, elegant, fruity and fresh. The wine was a very acceptable by-product of the greenery project but soon those little seeds of invention started to germinate in Ute´s mind and she thought “why not make wine on a small scale, it’s a good project and we have to do something with the grapes”.

The learning curve for Ute was steep to say the least. She does not come from a wine growing family and prior to settling in Patría, wine came in a bottle. She had never planted vines so thought getting a bit of local know how would be useful. She approached some vineyard workers in Chiclana who came to help her but their experience had been with the Palomino sherry grapes rather than wine grapes and the result were initially disappointing. The vines had been trained low down as you would with sherry vines but of course, wine vines need to be higher up. The vines voted with their feet and failed to deliver a bountiful harvest. Over the next four years, Ute took a lot of advice and took over control of the planting, getting the workers to train the vines so they grew higher up. Eureka! The vines did much better and they were off the starting blocks.

Vines are fickle and prone to all sorts of infections. Wine production dates back five or six thousand years to Georgia and Iran but in the late 19th century it was nearly curtains for the wine industry when the phylloxera epidemic destroyed most of the vineyards for wine grapes in Europe. Some estimates say that between two-thirds and nine-tenths of all European vineyards were destroyed.

So it is an industry fraught with dangers from nature. Ute was always firm that she wanted to do everything ecologically. The Cadiz region and particularly the coastal area can be damp during the winter and spring months so Ute uses sulphate and copper to stop fungus and mildew. Other than that, the vines get nothing more. They take all their goodness from the soil. Absolutely no pesticides go near the vines; Ute is very firm on that!

Getting the vines in the ground and the grapes off the vines is really only the first stage in wine making, you then have to press the grapes and that was a slight stumbling block. Their first thought was to take the grape harvest to a cooperative but co-operatives tend not to be very ecological in their approach.

I suspect old Bacchus must have been watching over our Ute though, because she found the “El Rancho de la Merced” and especially Dra. Belén Puertas in Jerez. El Rancho de la Merced is a centre set up by the government to assist and provide technical expertise to the natural industries in this part of Spain. They investigate and research in to improving and disseminating information on new technologies about wine growing and the cultivation of other native crops such as hard and soft wheat and sunflowers, to the local growers and producers. As part of their work, they have an experimental bodega which makes small amounts of wine. They work tirelessly and constantly to improve the wine and their focus is on quality and improving eco friendly wine production techniques. This small and highly specialised unit was just what Ute had been looking for and “El Rancho de Merced”, takes in grapes to press to help supplement their government grants. Where better to produce a quality wine?

Ute has also had a lot of help from Dr. Víctor Palacios, Professor of the University of Cadiz and many of her competitor wine growers. Wine from the Cadiz area is relatively new, only going back about 10/15 years so all the wine growers are new young outfits and are a happy to help each other and learn from their joint experiences.

So now Ute had the vines and the ability to produce wine but what about the bottling? Well, sadly that is mostly down to Ute and when Hans has time off from his day job running the Fly In Spain Flight Training Academy at Jerez airport, he too gets involved in filling, corking and labelling the bottles. No mean feat, as the ETU bodega produces around 3,500 to 4,000 bottles per year of white, rose and red wine.

Many people ask where the Bodega -Etu get its unusual and easily remembered name, well quite simply it is Ute spelled backwards and of course, it means “and you” in Spanish and their most popular wine is called SONRISA, which means “smile”.

Ute and Hans have no desire to be big wine producers, their business growth will come naturally as the years pass and their very select product becomes better known and more sought after.

Currently you can sample ETU´s wines in some of the local restaurants of Patría and a small selection of bars. If you fancy a bottle to take home, it is available from select shops in Tarifa, Conil, Vejer and Benalup, or why not get a group of friends together (minimum 10) and get in touch with Ute to arrange a tour of the bodega and a wine tasting. You are welcome to bring your own tapas and make a day of it and you can of course pick up a couple of bottles to take home. The price of this great product is very reasonable at 7 – 15 euros depending on which of the wines you fancy.

These artisan bodegas are worth their weight in gold, these are the people who bring us new and exciting products. They are not scared to try something different and they are not set in their ways, only looking to produce large quantities of mediocre wine which sells in the local supermarket. Ute and her kind are pioneers and personally, I take my hat off to her. Long may Ute work her magic with those grapes and long may Bacchus watch over her.