The Wine Route North

Wine in North Mallorca

Four wineries within a short drive of your villa — from a gravity-built cellar in the hills of Pollensa to vines growing high in the Tramuntana.

Mallorca has been making wine since the Romans, but the past two decades have transformed the island from a curiosity into one of the Mediterranean’s most exciting small wine regions. Native grapes you will find almost nowhere else — Prensal Blanc and Giró Ros for whites, Callet and Mantonegro for reds — grow alongside international varieties, and a new generation of winemakers has brought real ambition to old family land.

Best of all for guests staying in Pollensa: some of the loveliest estates on the island are on your doorstep. Here are four we recommend, each different in scale and spirit, and each happy to welcome visitors who call ahead.

Can Axartell

The showpiece of northern Mallorcan wine. On a centuries-old estate in the hills south of Pollensa, Can Axartell built its winery down into the hillside so that the grapes move through the entire process by gravity alone — no pumps, minimal intervention, maximum gentleness. The result is a cellar as beautiful as any on the island and a range of wines, from crisp rosé to serious barrel-aged reds, that has put the north firmly on Mallorca’s wine map. The tour of the terraced vineyards and the subterranean cellar is worth booking even if you think you are not a “winery tour” person.

Mortitx

Vineyards are not supposed to exist here. Mortitx farms a pocket of vines high in the Serra de Tramuntana, on the wild plateau between Pollensa and Lluc, surrounded by crags, sea mists and grazing sheep. The altitude and the sea air give the wines a freshness and tension quite unlike anything grown on the plain, and the setting — reached along the spectacular Ma-10 mountain road — is pure drama. Pair a visit with the drive to Lluc Monastery or a walk in the surrounding mountains and you have one of the great days out in the north.

Can Vidalet

The closest of the four to most of our villas, Can Vidalet sits in open country between Pollensa and Alcúdia, its neat rows of vines running toward the silhouette of the Tramuntana. The estate is best known for its aromatic whites and rosés — exactly what you want cold on a villa terrace in July — alongside well-made reds, and a tasting here has an easy, unhurried feel: this is a working family property, not a visitor attraction. Stop in on the way back from the beach, taste through the range, and leave with a boot full of bottles.

Bodegas Xaloc

Named after the warm south-easterly wind that crosses its slopes, Xaloc is northern Mallorca at its most intimate: a few hectares of vines in the quiet hills by the Pollensa golf course, walled in dry stone and producing only a small number of bottles each year. There is no visitor centre and no tour bus — tastings are private, arranged in advance, and hosted personally in the middle of the vineyard. The rosé has a devoted following, the estate’s olive oil is a lovely thing to take home, and the experience of tasting with the person who made the wine is one no larger winery can match.

Mallorcan wine for your villa

You do not need to leave the house to drink well. Every good shop in Pollensa carries the local estates, and we are happy to have a case waiting for your arrival — a crisp island white for the pool, a rosé for lunch, a structured red for the last long dinners on the terrace. Tell us what you like and we will choose accordingly; or pair the wines with a private chef evening and let the table do the travelling.