El Bandarra Red Vermouth 1L

El Bandarra traces back to 1962, when the Virgili family acquired Casa Berger, a Barcelona winery dating to 1878. Three generations later, brothers Àlex, Albert, and Jordi Virgili built El Bandarra as the flagship of the family business, drawing on the winery's long history in the Alt Penedès region of Catalonia. Its bright, screen-printed bottles borrow their look from the hand-painted tapas bar menus of 1950s and '60s Barcelona, tying the brand visually to a golden era of Spanish vermouth culture.

Rojo starts with a base of Macabeo and Xarel·lo wine sourced from the winery's own Alt Penedès estates. This is macerated with more than fifty botanical extracts, including cinnamon, ginger, vanilla, licorice, aniseed, chamomile, rosemary, bay leaf, hops, and bitter orange, giving the vermouth an unusually broad botanical range. After fortification and a touch of caramel for color, the finished vermouth rests for one to two months in barrels before bottling.

The result pours a deep tawny brown with orange highlights, opening with licorice, citrus, and clove on the nose alongside notes of stewed berry. The palate turns smooth and sweet at first, with cherry and blueberry jam giving way to wormwood, rosemary, and warm baking spice on a light, lingering finish.