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Man City star ‘all-in’ with wine business
Since retiring from the beautiful game last month, former Manchester City footballer David Silva plans to focus on his Gran Canaria winery.
Manchester City and Real Sociedad favourite David Silva was forced to retire from professional football last month due to a knee injury.
Now, he is channelling his energy into making a success of Bodegas Tamerán, a winery and six-hectare vineyard he bought four years ago in his home island of Gran Canaria.
Situated 600-700 metres above sea level on south facing slopes with sandy volcanic soils, Silva’s vineyard is planted with local grape varieties including Verdello, Marmajuelo, Baboso Blanco, Vijariego Blanco, Malvasía Aromática, Malvasía Volcánica and Vijariego Negro.
Wines are made following organic farming practices, under the guidance of winemaker Jonatan Garcia, who also owns the Suertes del Marques winery in Tenerife.
Winemaker Garcia said that when the footballer reached out to him on Twitter about starting up a wine business he thought it was a hoax.
“He sent me a message in 2019, when he was playing for City,” Garcia told The Mirror. “He congratulated me about one of my wines he was drinking. I was so shocked, I thought it must be a fake account. But we talked and that’s when our friendship developed and we started working together.”
“I got into wine through my former team-mate and good friend, Sisi, at Valencia,” said Silva.
“I started to buy wines from Madrid that I got sent over to Manchester. Then I met Jonatan and from that moment on it was like ‘Wow!’. From that day my mind was like ‘it’s amazing to discover this wine world’. I bought the vineyard four years ago, but back then I didn’t have the cellar. It was only the vines. Then we built the cellar.”
According to Silva, he helped out with the harvest this year, picking grapes in the vineyard, located in San Bartolomé de Tirajana, in the south east of Gran Canaria.
Tamerán’s wines are imported by Indigo Wine in London, which says that the winery aims to produce “refreshing, mineral wines which speak to the unique microclimate, volcanic soils and native grapes of the island.”