From the atlas
Vinos del Viento
At A Glance
| |
| Country | Spain |
| Region | Aragón |
| Appellation | Campo de Borja DO |
| Grapes | Garnacha Tinta, Garnacha Tintorera, Syrah, Graciano |
| Style | Rosé, Red |
| Farming | Rain-fed, no pesticides, herbicides or fungicides |
| First Bottle | Rose of the Winds Rosé |
The Producer
Michael Cooper is an American from Santa Barbara who came to Spain at 23 and went looking for old Garnacha vines. He found them in Aragón, in the Ebro Valley, on the slopes of the Iberian mountain range. The winery he built around them is called Vinos del Viento: Wines of the Wind. The name points to the Cierzo, a cold dry wind that funnels through the Ebro Valley at up to 50 kilometres per hour. Cooper farms without synthetic inputs, ferments with indigenous yeast, and bottles unfined and unfiltered. The range is small and the farming is deliberate.
The flagship holding is Clos de Ros, a rain-fed parcel of Red Grenache vines over 80 years old. No pesticides, no herbicides, no fungicides. Cooper kept the practices in place when he took the parcel on and built his project around them.
Place
Campo de Borja is a Denominación de Origen in the province of Zaragoza, in the autonomous community of Aragón in northeastern Spain. Garnacha is the region's grape: it dominates red production here and has done so for generations. The Ebro Valley, which runs through the zone, is defined by the Cierzo wind. Cold and dry, the Cierzo blows with enough force to reduce disease pressure in the vineyard, making low-intervention farming more viable than in wetter, calmer areas. Altitude reinforces that effect: the Aventura vines sit between 550 and 670 metres above sea level, where cooler nights slow ripening and preserve freshness in a grape that accumulates sugar quickly in heat.
The combination of old vines, wind, and elevation is what separates the Vinos del Viento bottles from the volume Garnacha produced across the wider Ebro plain.
Soil And Site
Clos de Ros sits on the slopes of the Iberian mountain range, where the terrain rises away from the valley floor. The parcel is rain-fed, with no irrigation, which keeps yields low and root systems deep. The vines are over 80 years old, which means a smaller, more concentrated crop each year. Aventura draws from higher-elevation parcels at 1,800 to 2,200 feet, dry-farmed, with 30-year-old vines. The specific soil types across these parcels are not fully documented, but the altitude, aspect, and dry-farming practice combine to produce fruit with more concentration and aromatic complexity than lowland Garnacha.
Story
Cooper arrived in Aragón without a cellar plan or an established bodega to work for. He came to Spain to be with his partner Rosario and stayed to make wine, spending his time looking for old Garnacha parcels rather than entry-level cellar jobs. Vine-hunting is how he describes what he does, and Clos de Ros was the result of that search: a parcel of 80-year-old rain-fed Garnacha on the Iberian mountain slopes, already farmed without chemicals by the previous owner.
He kept those farming practices and named his project after the Cierzo. The wind is not incidental to the name. It shapes the valley's growing season, cuts disease pressure, and appears on every bottle as the founding idea. The winery now operates on renewable energy and continues to move toward full organic status.
Vineyards And Cellar
The Clos de Ros parcel is the anchor: rain-fed, unfertilised, no synthetic crop protection, vines over 80 years old. Old vines produce fewer grapes per plant, and in a grape like Garnacha that can run toward high alcohol and soft tannin when overcropped, that restriction matters. The fruit arrives at the cellar more concentrated and more aromatic.
Aventura draws from 30-year-old dry-farmed vines at elevation. The Garnacha Tintorera in the blend adds colour depth; the Syrah adds aromatic lift. Fermentation uses indigenous yeast throughout: no inoculation, no commercial starter cultures. The wines are not fined or filtered before bottling, which preserves texture but requires clean, careful work in the cellar. Rose of the Winds is fermented entirely in stainless steel, which keeps the Garnacha's fresh red-fruit character intact without added weight from wood or oxygen.
Wines
The range is organised around two clearly documented wines and one flagship vineyard designation.
Rose of the Winds is 100% Garnacha Tinta fermented in stainless steel and released as a dry rosé. Cherry, strawberry and red berry aromas; raspberry and citrus on the palate; bright acidity and no oak. It is a lean, direct pink wine that uses the grape's aromatic strength without the alcohol weight Garnacha can carry in warmer sites.
Aventura is a red blend built primarily from Garnacha, Garnacha Tintorera and Syrah, sometimes with a portion of Graciano. The vines are 30 years old, dry-farmed, and planted between 1,800 and 2,200 feet. Deep purple in the glass, with berry and plum fruit, herbs, and a black pepper note from the Garnacha. The Garnacha Tintorera brings colour intensity; the Syrah lifts the aromatic profile. It is a forward, fruit-centred red with grip from the altitude and the dry-farmed vines.
Clos de Ros carries the producer's oldest and most deliberately farmed fruit: rain-fed Red Grenache, 80 years-plus, no synthetic inputs. The wine's full sensory profile is not documented in available sources. It is the parcel that built the project.
Additional bottlings, Montecito and Carifornication, appear in Nordic market listings. No composition or tasting detail is available for either.
In The Glass
Rose of the Winds opens with fresh red fruit: cherry, strawberry, a flicker of raspberry. In the mouth it is dry and lean, with citrus acidity cutting across the fruit rather than sitting beside it. No tannin, no oak. Garnacha in stainless steel at this level of farming produces a rosé that is precise and light on its feet, the aromatic richness of the grape held in check by the altitude and the winemaking.
Aventura is darker and more layered: berry and plum dominate, with a herbal thread and a black pepper note that runs through the finish. The dry-farmed, elevated Garnacha carries more grip than valley-floor versions, and the Garnacha Tintorera gives the wine density in colour and weight that the palate registers as substance rather than heaviness. It drinks forward but has enough dark-fruit concentration to hold with food.
A Bottle To Understand It
Start with Rose of the Winds. It is 100% Garnacha Tinta, fermented in stainless steel, unfined and unfiltered, and it shows exactly what Cooper is doing: old-vine aromatic power kept in a lean, dry frame. Strawberry and cherry on the nose, raspberry and citrus in the mouth, clean bright acidity on the finish. No oak, no residual sweetness, no added weight. It is the most direct expression of the grape and the farming, and at one bottle it answers the question of what Garnacha from the wind-cooled Ebro Valley actually tastes like.
Anecdote
Michael Cooper was 23 years old and living in Santa Barbara when he left for Spain to be with his partner Rosario, having met her in Rome. He arrived in Aragón without a cellar, without connections to an established bodega, and without a clear plan except to find old Garnacha vines. He spent his time looking rather than taking an entry-level job in someone else's winery. The Clos de Ros parcel came out of that search: a rain-fed plot of Red Grenache on the Iberian mountain range, the vines already over 80 years old, farmed by the previous owner without any chemical inputs. Cooper took it on, kept the farming exactly as it was, and named his winery after the Cierzo wind that defines the valley. The wind blows cold and dry at 50 kilometres per hour through the Ebro, and the first label he put on a bottle carried that name.
Final Word
Vinos del Viento is a small producer built around one remarkable parcel and a founder who came from California to search for it. The Clos de Ros vines have been in the ground for over 80 years, farmed without chemicals, and the project exists to make wine from them in as direct a way as possible. The Cierzo wind is both the name and the agricultural logic: it shapes what grows here and how the grapes develop. Rose of the Winds is the place to start.
Sources
- https://vinosdelviento.com/
- https://winesfromaragon.com/en/vinos-del-viento/
- https://www.terroirwines.us/viento