Together with my wife Maja, I bought this property in 2005. After having live 5 years in Australia, we didn´t feel ready to return to neither Sweden, where I come from, or Norway, where Maja was born.
The main house was more or less a ruin and the bodega in a very bad condition. There had not been any production of wine on the farm for 30 years. The former owners produced mainly almonds and figs.
As a former cyclist, our original plan was to build an hotel for cyclists, who wanted to explore the spectacular cycling area of Alpujarra. However, the finance crisis in 2008 made it difficult to find investors. At the same time Spanish authorities came with an incentive to start commercial wine production in the Granada region, the newest wine region of Spain.
That´s how IT-engineer Kristian and florist Maja became vine farmers.
We put down a lot of hard work to rebuild the farm, mainly doing everything ourselves, with some help from our son Christoffer. The foundation of the old house was too bad, so we had to tear down the building and construct a new villa, built in traditional Moorish style. The bodega was restored. We built a pool, a chicken yard and created a garden. We prepared the land and planted 12 000 vines. We learned to make wine.
All these years, we had volunteers from all over the world, helping at the farm and learning about natural wine production. Many of them became close friends.
From 2015, Majas health detoriated. She died in 2020, in the middle of the corona pandemic.
I became alone at the farm. Because of the pandemic, the volunteers I had depended on, were not allowed to come. The launch of the wines were postponed. I choose to leave the caretaking of the farm to my friend José and moved back to Norway, where I had lived for many years before.
In 2021, destiny smiled at me again: I met Tove. We established ourself in the countryside in Norway. Tove has lived more than 20 years in Greece, where she ran a small guesthouse. She has written several books about Greece and Greek food, and as a nutritionist she has held classes in Medterranean cooking all over Norway, been featured in Norwegian magazines, newspapers and on national TV.
Toghether we decided that we want to breath new life into the farm: We want to create a relaxing place for holidays, with focus on good food and wine. Here we offer courses in cooking and wine making. The villa has been restored to make it a comfortable holiday home while we ourself live in an apartment above the bodega.
Please contact us at hola@cortijomedico.com if you have requests about visiting.
Vil du følge oss?
Ønsker du å være den første som får vite om kurs og arrangement på vingården, og den første som mottar tilbud på opphold og liknende?
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