Background informations

A clear response: „In no one!“ The grapes are growing on the castilian high plains in Northern Spain, are brought to Germany as smashed grapes in a refrigerated truck and the wines are elaborated in Mindelzell in South Germany. This does not fit into any of the average drawers.

The grape material comes from Engelbert Schmid’s vineyards near Valladolid in Northern Spain. This is not fitting into any DO-drawer. DON ÁNGEL Wines are very personal. Its Engelbert Schmid, who with his knowledge and passion guarantees for these exquisite and self produced wines.

Also in the most famous wine areas you find all qualities from mediocre to superb. In first respect its the vintner in the vineyard and the wine maker in the cellar, who produces the quality, not the region! The DON ÁNGEL Wines from the very beginning got International Medals. Meanwhile its almost a matter of course, that all Tintóricos and Angelayos get International Gold, – the Angelayos in the competition to the most expensive wines on the world.

See more on this in the Medal Tally in this website.

Since the year 2000 the DON ÁNGEL Wines has been the heart blood project of Engelbert Schmid´s, whose speciality is to realise dreams. As Solo Horn in some of the best German Orchestras and as the worldwide leading maker of horns in the top professional market ( http://www.engelbert-schmid-horns.com ) he proved, that with his projects he is not only able to get among the International top leaders, but also to be able to set new standards. In 2008 he yet again realised one of his dreams and constructed Germany´s only Amphitheatre in ancient Greek style, affiliated to his horn production building.

The DON ÁNGEL Vineyards are located near Valladolid in Northern Spain, on the Castilian High Plains, the home of many great Spanish Wines.

The region around Valladolid has the perfect climate for wine and the best mineralic soils. The region around Valladolid has the perfect climate for vines and the best mineral soils. Absolutely healthy and fully ripe grapes are a matter of course with only a minimum use of plant protection, exclusively sulphur preparations, without which no kind of wine growing is possible. A dream for a vintner, how little of this he has to use at those steadily dry summers, – and this just preventively!

Engelbert Schmid’s vineyards near Valladolid consist of old vines of the red varieties  Cabernet Sauvignon, Tempranillo, Garnacha Tinta, Garnacha Tintorera and the white varieties Verdejo and Sauvignon Blanc.

Around 20 harvest helpers, hardly visible in the vine lines, are beginning at morning dawn with collecting by hand.

The wine making and the elaboration in all its details is in the personal hands of Engelbert Schmid, using the help of an experienced cellar master and the latest laboratory and cellar technology. Each step is crucial and requires the knowledge and the pronounced sensitivity of the wine-maker. The alcoholic fermentation follows a 3-month rest period to the natural fall of the trubbs. Then the red wines are ripened for 12 months in barriques (small 225 liter barrels) from French Allier oak. After rigorous selection in the vineyard, the grapes harvested manually in small boxes are hand-selected on sorting tables, carefully stemmed and slightly squeezed. The mash is then immediately filled into small tanks, cooled down to 0 ° C, and shipped to Germany as soon as possible. The travel time at 0 ° C is an ideal cold mashing time preceding the alcoholic fermentation, which promotes the removal of the primary fruit aromas.

Quality levels and pricing

The Don Angel wines are available in the price categories from high to low.

The Angelayo is at the level of the great cult wines, only much cheaper, at least still at the time! It can be a very good investment to put Angelayos into the your private wine cellar now. Unlike the Tintórico, the price is left to the market and can rise enormously!

The Tintóricos – always at the level of international medals – remain below € 20,- in the final consumer price on principle, although some vintages are much higher in quality. Every wine-drinker should at least occasionally be able to enjoy a bottle of Tintórico!

The cheap Bodegano is a surprisingly good entry wine or house wine for every day for wine drinkers who can not or do not want to spend much money on wine.

White wines, rosé wines and the AngelSecco are relatively inexpensive despite their high quality.

Discount scale

At wine, the handling of a few bottles is a big cost factor. That´s why we have introduced a discount scale for end users, which starts already with 24 bottles:
From 24 Fl. 5%,  from 48 Fl. 10%, from 72 Fl. 15%,  from 96 Fl. 20%, from 120 Fl. 25%, from 240 Fl. 35%, arbitrarily sorted! Shipping within Europe free, to other countries according arrangement.

The Passion of the Wine Maker

Engelbert Schmid’s main passion for wine is the red wines, rosados and the sparkling wine AngelSecco. His explanation to this: “In Germany there is a large selection of very good white wines, so it does not really make much sense to bring Spanish white wine to Germany. I nevertheless produce a small amount of white wines, because some of my customers are primarily white wine drinkers. White wine is a more technical wine with temperature-controlled elaboration. I try to contribute my personal touch also to white wine. German white wines are often stopped before the end of the fermentation in order to leave residual sugar and thus the fruit aromas of unfermented grape juice partially. In addition, sterilized grape juice is often added prior to filtration in order to make the wines particularly fruity and to reduce the climatically typical high acidity. No generally bad thing, but not quite natural. The aromas of my white wines, on the other hand, come from the fermented grapes only without any tricks. With the red wine remains much more space for the own personality of the wine maker. Great red wines are always the combination of enological knowledge with the subtlety of the tongue, the imagination of the wine-maker, the patience at harvest time and the elaboration, as well as one’s own practical experience. This is mine and is my passion. In addition, I am fascinated by the quality I can achieve with my Rosé wine Rosado with the fully ripe Tempranillo grapes from Northern Spain. From the same solid material I passionately produce the perl wine AngelSecco with natural bitter aromas, – the healthy version of those popular bitter fashion drinks.”

Technical questions to Engelbert Schmid:

“Why can you suddenly make such good wines as a side starter?” “As a passionate wine-maker, I have long been curious about the technique of wine making. With the incidental acquisition of a large property on the Canary Island “Isla Bonita” I began to cultivate wine. As with all subjects I am tacking with ambition, I wanted to have a complete look through all the theories and through the practical side. So I studied all the important international methods of wine production. Studying is one thing, the practice another. The best theorist can not yet realise a very good wine in practice. I have been able to combine these two worlds since 1998 and have already presented a top wine to a narrow customers circle at the official first vintage 2003. Wine production at the highest level is a fascinating topic that has become a passion for me.”

“Why red grapes from Spain for wine growing in Germany, where there are also good vineyards in Germany?” “We have more a white wine climate in Germany as a red wine climate. German white wines are among the best in the world. With the red wine I do not agree. We have here in Germany, for example very good Spätburgunder, – by the way: is not my grape! -, but Cabernet Sauvignon, Tempranillo and Garnacha Tintorera simply need more sun to develop the typical profound tannins. In Germany, we have a much better functioning infrastructure and administration, but not the climate for the very best red grapes. I personally regard German red wines as surprisingly good, measured by the climate, but I can produce a different world of deep red wines from Spanish material.”