Bodegas Suau: one of the oldest cellars in Mallorca
Bodegas Suau has wonderful indoor and outdoor spaces, where numerous private events are held regularly, transmitting authenticity and character, following a typical Mallorcan style.
The distillery where Bodegas Suau products are produced is in an underground level, to provide our barrels with balanced temperatures and humidity conditions throughout the year, guaranteeing the good conservation of our distillates.
Our distillery is atypical, there is no other system like the one we use to age our brandy. The production system follows a method of criaderas and soleras of three heights, in the shape of pyramids. Every so often, we extract a percentage of content from each barrel to fill another: from the soleras, those placed on the ground, to the middle part, and the criaderas, in the upper part, obtaining our characteristic distillate.
A Brandy Solera must remain in the barrel for at least six months. A Solera Reserva, a year, and a Solera Gran Reserva, up to three years. Several pyramids make up a production phase, which means all brandy passes through all barrels and not just through one specific pyramid. Following this system of criaderas, a brandy can be aged from 50 degrees. We age at 39 degrees since we must adapt our production systems to the fact of being based on an island.
Because we could not allow to spoil the barrels, something that happens when alcohol ages to a very high degree of alcohol, causing us to have to send the barrels to the peninsula for repair, we began to make brandy with a lower alcohol content, “over low heat”, so that the barrels did not suffer so much, achieving more aromas and flavors in a natural way.
At Bodegas Suau we are a boutique distillery, and our goal is to sell quality over quantity. The criaderas system allows us to extract 49% of the production, but we don’t reach 30%. Of the 350 thousand liters we have in the distillery, we bottle around 35 to 50 thousand liters a year, a low quantity compared to other Spanish distilleries.
The base of our Suau Brandy is a double-distilled airén strain that we receive from Castilla la Macha. Our barrels are made of American oak, resulting in unique aromas that remind us of firewood, coffee, chocolate, and cinnamon, some of the rand flavors of Bodegas Suau.
One of the parts of the distillery that surprises visitors the most is our Suau Club, a space where those interested can acquire the right to use a barrel and extract up to eight bottles a year. This is an exceptional brandy, since each year the members can drink an older brandy, paying the same price as a 15-year-old brandy. Each barrel carries a personalized label and there are those from individuals, companies, cocktail bars and great chefs from different countries.
The distillery is in an old flour factory, that’s why the street behind the enclosure is called Sa Farinera (the Flour Factory). The grain was kept in the cellar and was looks like a chimney was a smoke extraction zone that was used to prevent the stored grain from emitting toxic fumes.
Outside the underground cellar, in the most modern part of the building, there’s a room where exceptional tastings and events are organized every year.
