Why it matters
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 and vineyards
Where the wines begin
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.
In the cellar
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 to know
The range in view
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.