Castro Ventosa / Fam. Pérez Pereira
Castro Ventosa – a winery in the heart of the Bierzo wine-growing region. The Bierzo region comprises around 3,500 hectares of vineyards, 70 per cent of which are planted with vines aged between 40 and over 100 years. The native Mencía grape variety thrives in the sandy limestone soil.
In 1752, a member of the Pérez Pereira family acquired 54 hectares of land in Valtuille de Abajo. The family has been dedicated to winegrowing there for four generations and is now one of the most prominent names in the Bierzo region. The historic Castro Ventosa winery cultivates some of the area’s finest vineyards, focusing on the indigenous Mencía grape variety, which thrives in the ideal conditions found here.
Red wines from Castro Ventosa / Fam. Pérez Pereira
from Castro Ventosa / Fam. Pérez Pereira
Álvaro Palacios played an important role in the winery’s recent history. Before this now world-renowned winemaker launched his own projects in Bierzo (now in partnership with his nephew Ricardo Pérez Palacios), he worked as a ‘flying winemaker’ at Castro Ventosa, where he deepened his knowledge of the Mencía grape and the region’s distinctive terroirs. Later, through his own wines, he made a significant contribution to raising the international profile of Bierzo.
Thanks to the Pérez Pereira family’s many years of experience and their deep connection to the historic vineyards, Castro Ventosa produces characterful Mencía wines of the highest quality. El Valtuille and El Castro de Valtuille, in particular, are regarded as impressive ambassadors for the region and are among the finest expressions of this fascinating grape variety. Incidentally, ‘El Valtuille’ translates as ‘Valley of Olive Oil’. The name refers to the numerous olive trees in the surrounding area, which have been cultivated for oil production for generations.
Producer
Viñedos Terranoble
Soon after their arrival, the first Spanish colonists were already remarking the ideal vine growing conditions in Chile. In this country of great contrasts, embedded between the Andes and the Pacific Ocean, the many wine regions differ significantly through micro-climate, topography and altitudes, and geological properties. TerraNoble owns vineyards in three different regions and so can provide different varieties with the most suitable growing conditions.
Maison Stéphan
Jean-Michel Stéphan has vinified more than 30 vintages of Côte-Rôtie and is one of the true masters of natural winemaking (vins naturels) in the northern Rhône region. His wines have a vibrant purity that makes them unmistakable, characterised by a balance of energy and transcendence that stems from his vision of making impeccable wines without any additives.
Heymann-Löwenstein / Fam. Löwenstein
A landscape just as impressive as that of Vaud can be found some 400 kilometres to the north, on the Moselle. As on Lake Geneva, dry stone walls, painstakingly built by hand, characterise the steep terraces here too. However, instead of the loamy, calcareous moraine soils of the Rhône Glacier, the landscape is dominated by ancient slate soils formed around 400 million years ago by the collision of the primordial continents of Old Red and Gondwana.