Son Bunyola and the Mallorca Wine Region You Need to Know

Indagare’s senior editor Elizabeth Harvey recently checked in at Son Bunyola, Sir Richard Branson’s 1,300-acre estate in Mallorca’s Tramuntana mountains (and his follow-up project to member-favorite La Residencia, now a Belmond hotel). She reports: “Here, you can experience the ‘real’ side of Mallorca—the slow side, where days are filled with hikes, swims and plenty of time to eat and drink well. Every sip of wine is meant to be savored here—particularly since almost none of the roughly 5,000 bottles produced in this area ever leave the island (unless they're smuggled out in someone’s suitcase). In this age of uncapped connectivity and accessibility, that’s a true luxury—to experience something that can only be had in situ.” Read more about this hidden-gem wine region and get an inside look at the winemaking revival happening at Son Bunyola from sommelier Jaime Perez de Rada and executive chef Brenda Lisiotti, below.

Near the fisherman’s town of Banyalbufar, just a 40-minute drive from Mallorca’s Palma airport, the 1,300-acre Son Bunyola estate is perched on a prime swath of land stretching from the Tramuntana mountains down to the Balearic Sea. The area is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, still wild and lush with vineyards, pine and citrus trees, herbs and almond and olive groves. At the heart of the property, the 16th-century finca farmhouse has been thoughtfully restored and revived by Sir Richard Branson and Virgin Limited Edition, and it began welcoming guests back to the area in June 2023, for reservations between March and November.

The hotel encompasses 27 guest rooms and suites, with three standalone luxury villas: the four-bedroom Sa Terra Rotja, the five-bedroom Sa Punta de S'Aguila and the four-bedroom Son Balagueret. Gras Architects and the design firm Rialto Living seamlessly combined the hotel’s original elements with understated contemporary elegance—and a fresh collection of brightly colorful artworks that nod to Sir Richard Branson’s concept for La Residencia. Wooden carpentry, stone arches, exposed beam ceilings, wrought ironwork and local Binissalem stone and lime rendering define the finca’s bones, and original features like the staircase, the chapel altar and much of the tiling were preserved. A bespoke collection of hand-woven textiles was produced exclusively for Son Bunyola by artisans at the Tamgounssi Weaving Centre in the High Atlas Mountains in Morocco, through the Eve Branson Foundation, for a particularly warm touch.

On-site, there are two restaurants: the lovely Sa Terrassa, with its sprawling terrace overlooking the sea, and Sa Tafona, an intimate, elevated take on the tapas bar, housed within the property’s historic olive press. The dining program is seasonal and farm-to-fork—with an optional seven-course tasting experience in the evenings—and the menu revolves around the many ingredients that can be sourced from the surrounding acres and waters. There’s also a spa and fitness center, a tennis court and a stunning 28-meter swimming pool and hot tub, built into the mountain to emphasize the vantage point (plus an attached olive grove with sage loungers prime for afternoon naps). Yoga, training, cooking, painting and perfume-making classes can be arranged—as well as tee times at one of the over 20 golf courses on the island—and guests can enjoy walking, hiking and cycling along the many trails accessible from the property and leading down to three miles of Mediterranean coastline, with a guide or independently.

Nearly everything that can be touched and tasted at Son Bunyola is local and Mallorquín, from the terracotta flooring to the olive oil drizzled over each meal. And where Mallorca has lately been associated with beach soirées, late-night parties and jet-set glamour, Son Bunyola stands in stark contrast as a haven for the slow traveler, beckoning with wellness, ecotourism and agrotourism experiences. Granted, it's still chic—but it's more so a peaceful portal, through which visitors can connect with the true soul of the island, over a season that extends beyond the summer into spring and fall. On this Mallorca—the real Mallorca—days are filled with hikes, swims and plenty of time to eat and drink well. Every sip of wine at Son Bunyola is meant to be savored—particularly since almost none of the roughly 5,000 bottles produced in the area annually ever leave the island (unless they're smuggled out in someone’s suitcase). In this age of uncapped connectivity and accessibility, that’s a true luxury—to experience something that can only be had in situ.

Compared to its heavy-hitting compatriots in Rioja, Ribera del Duero, Catalonia, Rias Baixas and the Basque Country, Mallorca is not a particularly celebrated or even known Spanish wine region, though its production can be traced back to the second century BCE, when the philosopher Pliny the Elder wrote favorably of his tastings and popularized Balearic imports in Rome. Exportation expanded during the Middle Ages but came to a striking halt at the end of the 19th century, along with the rest of western Europe’s winemaking, with the spread of the phylloxera disease. A small number of vines were replanted, but local agriculture and commerce shifted focus to almonds, olives and fruit throughout most of the 20th century. In the 1990s, in tandem with a rise in tourism interest, a winemaking revival began in full force—and today, there are over 65 wine-producing estates on Mallorca, with two Denominación de Origen designated regions: Binissalem and Plà i Llevant. Still, you’ll be hard-pressed to find any of these wines off the island: nearly all of it remains on or near Mallorca, supplying high-end restaurants and quenching the thirst of the millions of visitors who now come each year (2023 saw the arrival of approximately 17.8 million tourists, and it’s projected that number may rise to 20 million by the end of 2024). Small production quantities, high demand and hot summer temperatures unfavorable to shipping have serendipitously coalesced to create one of Spain’s most singular destinations for wine tasting, where the flavors are comparable to other such coveted locales that benefit from access to mountains, hills and sea (like Sicily and Greece).

Currently, guests at Son Bunyola can enjoy explorations at nearby vineyards and private guided tastings of local wines with resident sommelier Jaime Perez de Rada. But as part of its many regeneration and sustainability initiatives, Son Bunyola has also planted over six acres to grow the local grape variety and produce the estate’s own Malvasia wine, launching in 2026, as it once did to acclaim during the 19th century. Get an inside look at this winemaking revival from Jaime Perez de Rada and executive chef Brenda Lisiotti, below.

What attracted you to Mallorca and the Son Bunyola wine and culinary program?

Sommelier Jaime Perez de Rada: After 14 years away from Mallorca, my birthplace, I decided to come back to undertake this new project and return to my wonderful island. (I first started my sommelier studies in 2014 at the Chamber of Commerce in Madrid, the most prestigious course in Spain.) What attracted me most is undoubtedly the magical Son Bunyola estate and the possibility to develop from scratch a wine offering for the hotel—and to put all my experience and enthusiasm into it.

Chef Brenda Lisiotti: I had worked in Michelin-starred restaurants for so long, so I decided it was time to put all of my experience into the new challenge of working as the executive chef in a brand-new hotel. (I’ve been working in kitchens for 20 years now, but I first studied gastronomic arts in Italy, in a city called Rovereto.) I found that there were a lot of opportunities in Mallorca, but Son Bunyola was by far the most interesting.

How do you source inspiration for your menus?

Chef Brenda Lisiotti: As a chef, I find inspiration almost everywhere, but mostly in nature. On the Son Bunyola estate we are surrounded by a lot of greenery and a magnificent view of the Mediterranean sea, so I try to bring a sense of all of that to our guests within my dishes. Seasonality is extremely important, so we change our menus three times a year (spring, summer and autumn). Recently we started working with Pagesos Ecologics de Mallorca; they provide us with seasonal vegetables, lamb and pork. Everything they offer is eco-friendly and locally sourced.

How does the kitchen at Son Bunyola practice sustainability?

Chef Brenda Lisiotti: I think it’s a non-negotiable these days to be as sustainable as possible in the kitchen. We source local and eco-friendly produce and avoid single-use plastic as much as we can. We aim not to waste much food, utilizing different methods of preservation and, importantly, we grow and produce as much as we can within the estate. Son Bunyola has vineyards, olive groves, fruit orchards and an ever-expanding kitchen garden where we grow our herbs and vegetables to really reduce the food miles of our ingredients. We have 12 beehives, with two queen bees in each hive, and we harvest our own honey. The estate keeps a variety of animals including peacocks and sheep, as well as chickens to produce eggs for the kitchens and donkeys to help keep things tidy. Wherever possible, flowers (mostly lavender) are picked from the estate for decoration. Soon we will even have our own olive oil and wine production.

Can you tell us more about the winemaking project at Son Bunyola?

Sommelier Jaime Perez de Rada: The Son Bunyola winemaking project is still at a preliminary stage, but this summer, we proceeded with our first harvest, only from a small part planted three years ago, to vinify and produce our first vintage of Son Bunyola Malvasia. We currently have 4.5 hectares of vines planted in terraces, of which one hectare is approximately three years old, and the rest was planted only one year ago. In the region where we are located (Banyalbufar, west of the Tramuntana mountain range), the ancestral variety of the area is the Malvasia de Banyalbufar, one of the oldest varieties in the world (which was already planted here in the past, going back as far as 1275 AD). The type of wine to be produced is a dry, clean white wine, very fresh and aromatic, with good acidity and a very marked minerality, and hints of the sea, due to the type of soil we have here, which is made up of clay and a large amount of limestone, and the exposure to the sea.

What makes Son Bunyola a must-visit for wine lovers?

Sommelier Jaime Perez de Rada: The location, the history of the estate and its wine culture over the centuries, the recovered Malvasia vineyards, and the wine offering we currently have, placing a lot of importance on Mallorcan wines, looking for real gems from small producers to delight our guests. We hope to be able to have a great white wine produced on the property for guests to taste, that we think is extraordinary. Of course, it’s a very enriching personal experience as well, being able to introduce guests to the wine culture of the island of Mallorca.

What are some of your favorite wines that you serve at Son Bunyola?

Sommelier Jaime Perez de Rada: In white, one of the most special is Clos de Mar 2022, a white wine from Giró Ros, from a single vineyard located in Formentor, in the north of Mallorca. It's perfect for pairing with seafood rice dishes and oily fish. In red, without a doubt, 4 Kilos 2022, a Callet from Felanitx, one of the great wineries, and one of the great wines of this island. Generally, the most typical local white grape varieties are Prensal Blanc, Giró Ros and Malvasia of Banyalbufar. The most typical local red varieties are Callet, Mantonegro, Gorgollassa, Esperó de Gall, Fogoneu and Escursac.

What would you like more people to know about Mallorcan wines?

Sommelier Jaime Perez de Rada: Above all, the fact that in Mallorca we have many local varieties, which perfectly describe our terroir. That we have a wine culture that is more than 2,000 years old, and that despite the fashions, which are always fleeting, we have great winemakers, winegrowers and owners who are committed to our ancestral varieties and to producing great wines that are true to Mallorca and spectacular places like Son Bunyola. The Mallorca brand is booming, and its wines are no exception.