From the soil to the bottle

The wine made on the vine

The best grape comes from the very best soil with its finely balanced texture and structure that is blessed with a favourable climate based on warm days and cold nights. This wonderful land nourishes 60-year-old vines that produce smooth, full-bodied wines with a delicate aroma and a complex, sweeping palate combined with its vivid, intense and constant colours mirroring the life of the vines that make the wines as noble as their origin.

It is important to highlight our invaluable and firmly engaged team who has drawn its expertise from the legacy of over eight generations and pours all its love and care into each vine, each spur, each bud and always chooses the best option to get the best bunch, seeking quality, not quantity.

Our team needs to know the soil and its finely balanced nutrients in depth as these are fundamental factors in the growing, performance and appropriate ripening of the grapes.

The grape that produces the best wine grows with light and soil, but it’s man’s work that brings it to life. This is how Pablo Neruda described it in one of his poems and this is what happens in La Rioja’s vineyards.

1. THE CARE AND ATTENTION TO DETAIL

The dawn

Flowering of the vine, Viura variety.
Santa Tornea vineyard, San Vicente de la Sonsierra, Rioja Alta.

From the happy symbiosis between the ‘feet’, which root the most prestigious varieties in the most balanced soils, the most opportune waters and the most beneficial suns and temperatures, arises the portent of balance between the vegetative growth, the accumulated wood and the fruit obtained.

Pruning should be done correctly in the winter months, leaving only three branches per vine, two thumbs on each branch and two buds on each thumb.

From the rigorous control of the pruning, the shoots which have already grown, from these vigorous shoots, with a delicate study of the foliage for their adequate thinning, come the bunches of grapes, of medium size and small berries, adjusting their weight in each hectare to the DOCa Rioja ordinance and, on most occasions, remaining naturally below this strict limit.

Wise pruning and attentive care ensure this. From there, the necessary shoots are born, which without concessions to excess, no more than 6,500 kg per hectare for the red varieties and 9,000 kg for the white varieties, will materialize in a fruit whose berries contain a universe of fragrances and aromas, flavors and nuances, and multi-tonal colors that make the wines of this land one of the best wines in the world.

The physical-chemical process of photosynthesis is of great importance, due to which the leaf surface – hence the extreme importance of leaf removal or thinning – absorbs solar radiation to produce berries with the optimum degree of sugar, which will be transformed into alcohol in the fermentation process that bears its name.

2. Collection of the grapes

Harvest

The grapes are harvested by hand only when their characteristics are optimal, never on very hot days, but on dry days, without dew, with the first dawn of the day, selecting the ripe and healthy bunches, transporting them quickly and properly to the winery, destemming if necessary and transferring the grapes to the fermentation tank. If the variety demands it, the grapes are harvested at night by machine.

3. PVital processes to ensure maximum quality

Sorting and destemming

The fruit must maintain its integrity until it reaches the sorting table, where not only plant debris is removed but also anything that could compromise the final quality.

A perfect destemming is essential to separate the cluster from the berry, a delicate and meticulous operation to prevent the berry from breaking, as it must reach the fermentation tank intact to avoid uncontrolled fermentation before the process begins.

The quality of our wines is the result of the most rigorous control of the fruit in the vineyard and in the winemaking process.

Where science seems like magic

Elaboration

Experimental sciences combine in perfect harmony to obtain in a few days a precious broth by the complex biochemical evolution, transforming sugars into a high degree of alcohols and extracting from the skin (skin) aromas and colors; a mixture of alcohols that will give life and age to this organoleptic miracle of nature, which is the WINE and which someone, with much fortune defined as something more than a mineral and a little less than Life.

The indigenous yeasts coming from the soil and from the vine itself, with the appropriate temperature and time for alcoholic fermentation, will produce the transformation, in a first alcoholic fermentation, tumultuous and another more calm one that will consume the total disappearance of the sugars. The stainless steel tanks where it is carried out are a guarantee of hygiene, temperature control and prevention of microbiological accidents. The punching down, ‘delestage’ and pumping over will recirculate the must over the cap, which is formed with the skins, extracting the maximum and best properties from the skin of the grapes, habitat of the most noble and differentiating part of the fruit.

On their way to the wine, the polyphenols, aromas and colors will pass to the must and thus, in a few days, when the work of the indigenous yeasts declines, other beings no less important for the wine, the lactic bacteria, will take over; This first wine obtained continues in a slow process of malolactic fermentation that manages to outline, polish and soften the tones and flavors that the newborn wine treasures and adapts it for its aging, where it gets its components to exalt their best qualities in oak barrels, through slow oxidation, stillness and silence with periodic racking to remove the lees, clarifying the wine to reach the bottle in the best conditions.

The physical-chemical process of photosynthesis is of great importance, due to which the leaf surface – hence the extreme importance of leaf stripping or thinning – absorbs solar radiation to produce berries with the optimum degree of sugar, which will be transformed into alcohol in the fermentation process that bears its name.

5. Environmental conditions

The aging

The warehouse that hosts the barrels is naturally isolated against heat or cold and noise to help the wine sleep, far away from any disturbances and light, and keeping the temperature and humidity within the optimum range and with minimal variations.

Optimum range: Temperature 13º – 15º C Humidity 70% – 75%

This second phase of the winemaking, regulated by overseeing the analytical data and fundamentally sensory data (tasting), with the appropriate racking and sufficient airing, swiftly develops the full aromatic potential of the wine. After the appropriate racking and a gentle clarification, the wine is left to sleep in its bottle. With this second phase, the parameters for ph, aroma, colour, taste, alcohol content, dry extract, etc. reach their best levels and their potential is enhanced.

But of course, to achieve the best values, we have to start with the best grape, finely balanced soil, old vines with limited production and good or excellent vintages.

6. Our wines thrive with rest

Bottle graveyard

Our graveyard, where the souls of our wines sleep, will give them life, a long life, away from the light and noise. Under strict monitoring of the temperature and humidity, the best attributes of our wines will spring out when you uncork the bottle.

THE CARE AND ATTENTION TO DETAIL

The dawn

Pruning should be done correctly in the winter months, leaving only three branches per vine, two thumbs on each branch and two buds on each thumb.

Flowering of the vine, Viura variety.
Santa Tornea vineyard, San Vicente de la Sonsierra, Rioja Alta.

Collection of the grapes

Harvest

Vital processes to ensure maximum quality

Sorting and destemming

The fruit must maintain its integrity until it reaches the sorting table, where not only plant debris is removed but also anything that could compromise the final quality.

The quality of our wines is the result of the most rigorous control of the fruit in the vineyard and in the winemaking process.

Where science seems like magic

Elaboration

Environmental Conditions

The Ageing

Optimum range: Temperature 13º – 15º C Humidity 70% – 75%

But of course, to achieve the best values, we have to start with the best grape, finely balanced soil, old vines with limited production and good or excellent vintages.

Our wines thrive with rest

Bottle graveyard

Our graveyard, where the souls of our wines sleep, will give them life, a long life, away from the light and noise. Under strict monitoring of the temperature and humidity, the best attributes of our wines will spring out when you uncork the bottle.

From the soil to the bottle

The dawn

Harvest

Sorting and destemming

Elaboration

The aging

Bottle graveyard

The dawn

Harvest

Sorting and destemming

Elaboration

The Ageing

Bottle graveyard

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