Sierra de Salamanca, Spain
Viñas Serranas
We are delighted work with Viñas Serranas, Vinalia’s second producer from the Sierra de Salamanca. This is an up-and-coming region attracting dynamic winemakers to tend the abandoned old bush vines and create beautiful wines along with those from plots propagated with careful mass selection of varieties such as Rufete and Rufete Blanca.
Viñas Serranas is a project created in 2017 by Cesar Ruiz, Alberto Martin, Bosi Jimenez and Miquel Udina. They own around 12 hectares of vineyards that are scattered throughout the region. They produce an entry level wine (Ciclón) as well as several single vineyard plots of diverse topography, elevations and soil types. The viticulture is organic, towards conversion to biodynamics. The terrain in the Sierra de Salamanca is steep, so all vineyard work is manual. We look forward to a lasting relationship with this exceptional winery.
La Pivonera
We are delighted to offer the 2019 Pivonera from a tiny 0.4-hectare plot planted over 100 years ago near San Esteban de la Sierra. It is a wine made from Calabrés (the local clone of Grenache Noir). The vineyard is on sandy soils at an altitude of almost 1000 m, meaning that with cool nighttime temperatures, the grapes retain good acidity and delicacy.
Grapes are hand-harvested and sorted. Fermentation is in small open tanks with indigenous yeasts. The wine is matured in two 300-litre oak barrels for 14 months and bottled without filtration or clarification. For the 2019 vintage, only 760 bottles were produced
Garcibuey
Garcibuey is one of the 3 village wines produced by Viñas Serranas. Made 100% from Rufete, the indigenous variety grown in the Sierra de Salamanca, the fruit for this wine comes from several east facing plots containing slate, schist and clay soils. These vineyards are among the lowest in altitude farmed organically by Viñas Serranas, hence the wines are more open and structured.
After hand harvesting (end of August/early September) the grapes are fermented using native yeasts for 2-3 weeks. The wine is matured in a mixture of 500 and 225 litre used oak barrels. Around 1,500 bottles are produced.