Black Pepper, Red Berry, Balsamic

Galicia / Red / Mencía/ Organic

This cuvee comes from various parcels of organically tended vines around Valtuille de Abajo. Averaging 80yo the vines are planted in the typical sandy, iron-rich clay soils yielding around 25hh. Given a 15-day cuvaison and aged for seven to nine months, half in 800ltr amphoras and half in 2-3yo barrels, total SO2 40mg/l. Another wine that seriously punches above its weight. Spicy and juicy reminiscent of Pineau D'Aunis.

Notes on the producer

Veronica Ortega was brought up in Cadiz with five elder brothers and a famous bullfighting father, but catching the wine bug in the 2000s she moved away to Priorat where she worked with Alvaro Palacios and Daphné Glorian (Clos Erasmus), then Burn Cottage in Central Otago NZ, Niepoort in the Douro, Comte Armand and then a season at DRC in Burgundy, followed finally by a spell with Domaine Combier in Crozes. Upon her return to Spain, she worked with Raúl Perez in Bierzo from whose cellar she experimented before setting out definitively with her project in 2012. Veronica has gradually pieced together her holdings of 5.7ha of old vines through leasing and buying, though she has struggled to buy plots, noting that "locals are tied to their land, and prefer to own it while doing nothing with it, rather than selling!" The help and network of her friend Ricardo Palacios (Descendientes J. Palacios) proved instrumental in securing top terroirs. In addition, she buys grapes from growers working well in the vines, although she and her team choose the picking date and carry out the harvest. She follows organic practices in her own vineyards and is in the process of converting to biodynamics.

Most of her wines are partly aged in amphora (the balance sees 228ltr oak barrels), because Veronica likes the purity and the texture of the fruit it conveys. She works with whole bunches for her single-vineyard wines although Quite is destalked, and she keeps sulphur levels as low as possible – total of 25 to 40mg/l through the range depending on the wine's stability