August 2024 - Ribera del Duero / Rueda
August 2024
Spain
Ribera del Duero / Rueda
Featuring:
Torremorón
Oro de Castilla
This month’s wine club is based off of an educational trip I did with Olé & Obrigado Imports back in March of this year. Our first two stops were Ribera del Duero and Rueda, where we visited these very producers you’ll read about today. As the following information is largely from my personal experience, the voice will change at times from third to first person as I recount a personal story. We’ve also changed the usual format to represent Region -> Producer -> Wine, rather than showcasing both wines at the end of the writeup. All of the photos in the gallery are taken by myself. Enjoy.
Ribera del Duero
Madrid, the capital of Spain, sits roughly in the center of a massive plateau called Meseta Central that occupies most of Spain. Driving north from the sprawling metropolis, one quickly finds themselves crossing the Sierra de Guadarrama mountains, dusted with snow in late winter but dry and arid in summer. Another hour or so north lies the wine region of Ribera del Duero.
Still perched upon the Meseta Central - yet a far cry from the urban sprawl that is Madrid - this is officially rural Spain. Ribera del Duero is a medium-sized appellation sprawling east-west along the Duero river, which has headwaters to the east and drains into the Atlantic in Portugal (where it is called the Douro). Ribera del Duero is an arid region, with crisp, cool winters and warm, dry summers. Total rainfall is low and daily temperature swings in summer can vary as much as 50 degrees Fahrenheit.
There is evidence of winemaking in this region as far back as 600 BC, however the region’s rise to prominence has been surprisingly delayed, with widespread notoriety only developing in the last 40 years. When the Denominación de Origen (DO) status was given to the region in 1982, there were only 9 wineries. Today, there are over 300. Bodegas Vega Sicilia, founded in 1849, was an early pioneer for the region and remains its top producer, with its ‘Unico’ being considered one of, if not the, top wines of Spain.
The primary grape of the region is Tempranillo, which makes up about 95% of plantings. Many people claim that the Tempranillos of Ribera del Duero tend to be the most pure expression of the grape, especially when compared to their near-ish neighbor (and quiet rival), Rioja. Other grape varieties are allowed but not often seen - Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Malbec for vinos tintos, Garnacha for rosado, and a small amount of DO vino blanco has been allowed since 2019.
Generally speaking, the wines of Ribera del Duero represent terrific value propositions for Tempranillo lovers. The warm climate, high elevation, and wide range of diurnal temperature swings allows for wines with fantastic extraction of color and flavor, but with remarkably high acidity that preserves freshness and allows for ageability. Moreover, the wines tend to be produced in stainless steel and don’t have the same pronounced oak flavor that Rioja or new world Tempranillo tend to have. If we had to suggest one Spanish wine for a beginner to focus on building out a cellar with, this would probably be it. For right around $25, one could buy a fantastically-made wine from a notable producer that would be both drinkable upon purchase but improve greatly over the next five, ten, or fifteen years.
Bodegas Torremorón
There are less than 100 people who live in the town of Quintanamanvirgo in the height of summertime. In winter, it is maybe half of that, at best. The town is located off a small, one lane road and has one bar and a winery. Almost everyone who lives in the town is or has been employed by one of these two businesses.
The bus parked at an old, forgotten schoolyard just off the main road, across from the lone bar/café, in partial hibernation for the season. As the twenty or so of us exited the bus, the cold winter wind came biting across the high plains. We were at almost 3000’ elevation, in Northern Spain, in late winter. It was clear - a welcome change from Portland - but still colder than expected. Only a few people were dressed appropriately, and every single one of us was jet lagged, tired, and a tad bit disoriented.
We were quickly greeted by a representative of the winery who spoke English and started walking away from the town. A small knoll, called Manvirgo, rises just south of the town and is where the name Quintanamanvirgo comes from. After about 5 minutes walking in this direction, we start to see little stone structures rising up out of the hillside. These structures, some several hundred years old, were individual cellars for each family that lived in the town. For centuries, the families would tend to their vines surrounding the town, harvest the grapes, ferment and press them in a communal stone lagar, then haul the finished wine to their own cellar, 30 feet underground, to age in barrel or bottle. There were upwards of fifty, perhaps 100, of these small cellars. Some were in near to total ruin while others were immaculate, perhaps still in use as a family wine or root cellar.
As we walked along the hillside, the owner of the import company pointed out holes in the ground the size of a tennis ball, and told us to be careful. There were chimney vents, allowing CO2 to escape the cave during fermentation of the grapes. One wrong step and the engineering mastery of 15th century Spaniards could be put to test.
Five at a time, we were able to enter a well-kept cellar. Behind the small wood door, a stairway led 30 feet down into the hillside, where a hand dug cave the size of a small car held old bottles. There was a small archway that led to another room of the same size with a single, large oak barrel. The group surmised that the barrel must have been assembled underground, as it was far too large to travel down the lone staircase in its final form. There were no lights, no electricity, no climate control. Just the consistent coolness of the damp earth, some spiders, and the near-forgotten history of a way in which people used to live.
As we exited the cave and made our way to a refurbished stone building, we were greeted by some old Spanish men with a porrón of Tempranillo. While the locals lit a fire using dried grapevine cuttings and began to barbecue meats, we walked to a small field of old, gnarled vines off the road. Looking out over the basin, it was the same sight as far as the eye could see; vineyards on top of red iron-rich clay, an absence of vegetation in the dormant vineyards, and a few small pine forests intermixed with other sleepy towns.
For centuries, the families of this area farmed and made wine together, but kept their finished product separate. Intended for personal consumption or perhaps barter with others, this was wine of sustenance, not of commerce. In the late 50’s, the global wine industry was flourishing and Spain’s economy as a whole was seeing unprecedented growth as both tourism and globalization exploded. The people of Quintomanovirgo faced a similar decision to many across Europe - learn to monetize their sustenance farming, or slowly get squeezed out and sell your vineyards off to larger private holders. In 1957, the community banded together to create Bodegas Torremoron. The new entity was structured as a sort of a cooperative, where shared ownership allowed the many families to pool resources to reduce their cost of production and make a wine that they could sell in the local and global markets.
Today, the community faces another challenge: workers. Each fall, as the vineyard and winery work dries up, young people migrate to the city to find work to sustain them through the winter. Each summer, less and less return to the town, preferring the stability of work in the city to the seasonal swing of the countryside. As the population of Quintomanovirgo ages, the community - along with many others across rural Spain, Portugal, and Europe as a whole - wonders who will carry on their centuries old tradition when they are gone.
As the meats finished grilling, we retired to the refurbished stone building where some tables and chairs had been set up. An enormous piece of pine hung over our heads. On the other side of the room was a 10 foot deep stone pit. Before the modern winery was built, grapes would be brought to ferment here, and the piece of timber would be used as a counterweight to apply pressure on the finished fermentation, separating the fermented wine from the skins, seeds, and stems. While we ate our first meal of the trip, we sipped on Torremoron and discussed what this wine meant to us and to the wine world. We surmised that this wine was not just about what was in the bottle. Rather, this wine told a story of a community coming together to survive in the face of a changing world. This wine told the story of not some star-studded winemaker, but rather a humble collection of people - not one of whom I can name, but faces I’ll long remember - that collectively put their efforts into creating something special. This wine also tells the story of rural Spain - the evacuation of younger people to the city and the ensuing anxiety as to the future of their land they’ve worked so hard to hold onto.
By supporting small family-owned producers and honest community cooperatives like Torremoron, you as a consumer are actively helping protect these special places and long human history that they represent.
Torremoron, Tempranillo Tinto, Ribera del Duero 2022
This is a value-driven wine with incredible pedigree. It is 100% Tempranillo, sourced from vines ranging from 30-150 years of age. The vines here are mostly ungrafted and trained without the use of wires or trellises. (The label depicts a few of these vines, along with the door to one of the historic cellars mentioned earlier.) The wine is made entirely in stainless steel, not oak, and is remarkably fresh and vibrant for a warm-climate red. Notes of ripe fruit - blackberry, black cherry, blueberry - are framed by an iron-rich minerality and touch of pepper. The palate is remarkably fresh and long-lived, with bright acid, integrated tannins, and no rough edges. This is a $100 wine with a $20 price tag. It would go great with grilled lamb or pork chops.
Rueda
By leaving Ribera del Duero and heading west, one quickly finds themselves in the land of white wine, Rueda. This small region is known primarily for the Verdejo grape. Located on the south side of the Duero river, sandwiched between Ribera del Duero and Toro (another Red/Tempranillo heavy region), it seems particularly interesting that this region leans so heavily to white wine. Upon tasting the whites of this region - one of, if not THE, most popular white wines in Spain - it is easy to understand the appeal of the Verdejo grape in this terroir.
Climatically and geographically speaking, Rueda has a lot in common with its neighbor to the east, which we just covered. Limestone soils nearer to the river generally represent the best vineyards, with areas furthest from the river being known for sandy, iron-rich soils with slightly less appeal. The same cold winters and hot summers (with large diurnal swings) can be found here. One difference is proximity to the Atlantic ocean, just slightly increasing the chances of frost, hail, or strong winds.
Ideologically, there is a whole lot less common. The breakdown of white/red is one glaring difference. Where Ribera produces roughly 95% red wine from one grape, Rueda produces nearly 90% white wine, also from one single grape. Verdejo gained a foothold in the region as early as the 11th century, when it was the most prized white in all of Spain. (I’m sure proximity to the royalty and a large populace in Madrid helped this.) In the 1890s, consistent with the rest of Europe, phylloxera devastated plantings in the region. Once the area was replanted, Palomino Fino took over as the principal grape. This is an easy to grow, relatively unexciting variety that oxidizes easily and was favored for dessert wine production (and today is used primarily for Sherry, in the south). For most of the 20th century, the region was known for sweet, fortified Dorado (gold) wines. In the 1970s, consistent with the global decline in sweet wine, dry whites made their way back into vogue. With this change of styles, vineyards were replanted and quantity over quality became a priority.
Today, Verdejo represents roughly 93% of plantings in Rueda, Sauvignon Blanc is in second place with ~6%, and all of the other grapes combined make up the rest (about 1-2%). Due to the blistering daytime heat at harvest, grapes are picked at night (often by machine), to preserve the acidity in the wines and keep the grapes from oxidizing upon pressing. Stainless steel is the overwhelming medium for fermentation, and aging of these bottles is rarely considered before release. Rueda is a prime example of a region that has figured out how to do something well and has worked tirelessly to perfect that craft.
Oro de Castilla
As we arrived at the winery on the second day of the trip, we immediately knew we were in for a much different experience than at Torremoron. We were just a mile outside of the town of Rueda, off a small highway that used to be a major thoroughfare to Madrid before the nearby Autopista was built. The winery before us was striking in its modernity - large, angular stone walls were broken up with weathered steel supports resembling a vineyard trellis. The front walkway was perfectly laid slate with sensible landscaping. All of the machines, trucks, and signs of this being a working winery were hidden away. Were we still in rural Spain? Yes, however I could easily be convinced this was a design-forward biotech company’s HQ in the Bay Area. Thankfully the words Oro de Castilla were written on the side of the building and my sleep-deprived self didn’t get lost. As we entered, we were greeted by the enthusiastic Pablo del Villar Igea, the second generation and head of the estate today. While intimately knowledgeable about grape, vine and the process at his winery, Pablo himself was not a winemaker but rather a businessman. He struck me as the kind of person that had the energy and drive to be good at anything he did, and just happened to end up doing this.
Pablo took us through the winery, from one room to another filled floor to ceiling with massive settling tanks, fermentation vessels, and finally bottling, packaging, and warehouse space. As we moved through the winery, Pablo explained in intense detail the rigorous steps they take to ensure their Verdejo is of the highest quality. After being hand-picked at night, the grapes are immediately pressed and pumped into settling tanks. These tanks are temperature controlled, inhibiting fermentation while the debris from the vineyard and heavier parts of the grape solids settle to the bottom of the tank, usually about 10 days. Next, the wine is racked off of the top and moved to (slightly less chilled) new stainless steel vessels, where the fermentation is allowed to commence using native yeasts. After a long, slow fermentation, the wine is racked again and left to rest for 4 months, where it sees daily battonage (lees stirring) to increase the richness and texture of the wine. Malolactic fermentation is withheld using temperature control, and then the final wine is filtered and bottled the winter/spring after the harvest.
After the tour, we entered the tasting room to get an overview of the three wines pertinent to us: two vintages of this cuvee (one just bottled a week prior), plus an older single vineyard Verdejo that is only made in exceptional conditions (the last vintage being 2017). While the tour was the complete opposite of what we experienced a day ago at Torremoron, the finished product was just as compelling. This is the result of a single family that sets out with the sole purpose of creating one spectacular wine to hinge their entire reputation off of. There is no room for error when it comes to this one wine, and every small detail adds up to creating the finished product. Unlike food manufacturing or even beer brewing, there is no batch to recall, no do-over if something wrong happens. Each year, you are given one harvest, one batch of raw material to work your magic with. The grapes must be perfect and the cellar work must be precise. While Torremoron was an experience of the heart, this was an experience energizing to the mind and the endless upward limits of drive, dedication, and execution.
Oro de Castilla, Verdejo, Rueda 2023
100% Verdejo from organically grown vines aged between 15-35 years. Planted to limestone soil with river rock and sand topsoil at about 2400 feet above sea level. Notes of meyer lemon and green apple, with a touch of chalkiness and fresh herbs. There is bright acidity on the palate, with a soft texture rounding out the mouthfeel.
This wine is what the Spanish Wine Academy cites as a ‘Best Example’ (aka benchmark) wine when referencing Verdejo from Rueda. Simply put, it is a classic expression done incredibly well. While this wouldn’t necessarily get worse with some age, I wouldn’t make an effort to cellar this type of wine. Its purpose is to be drunk young, with good company, and some decent food. Anything light and bright would be complementary to the wine - fish with butter, olive oil, or a white sauce, grilled or roasted vegetables, soft cheese, or even a simple green salad.