100% Mazuelo.
860 bottles.
Manual grape harvest of each grape variety in small ten-kilogram tubs. Cooling in cold room until the temperature of the grapes goes down to 3 °C. Double selection of clusters and grains, with mild destemming and crushing. Individual vinification of grapes from El Castaño and Martinete. Gravity-fed into French oak vats with no pumping. Cold macerated and fermented for 18 days with native yeast strains. Gravity racked to new French oak barrels before malolactic fermentation.
14-month stay in new French oak barrels from different cooperages, with different toasting levels and origins, without racking and remaining over lees until bottled, with periodic bâtonnages during the first months. The wine is bottled without filtering or fining, so a small amount of natural precipitate may appear over time.
Our bottle is inspired in an original eighteenth-century bottle that is on exhibit at the Vivanco Museum of the Culture of Wine.
Deep purple, with a garnet-red rim inking the glass. Intense aromas of ripe black and red fruit (blackberries, raspberries), underbrush, fresh herbs and coffee, all of it enveloped by an earthy, mineral component. In the mouth, it is very fresh, fruity and balsamic, with soft tannins and a long, powerful, complex, persistent finish.
Stews, pulses, meat casseroles and all kinds of char-grilled meat.
It was on the eve of 28 April. The sky was clear, without a cloud. Bud break had taken place a fortnight earlier than in a normal year. And the thermometer went down and down, down to minus 4-5°C. The result was the worst frost of the new century in Rioja Alta. Almost 35,000 hectares were affected. Our Mazuelo vineyards were saved from that frost. But they suffered an extreme drought that greatly limited production. To date, it is the earliest harvest in our history. We started picking in late September.