Sierra de Salamanca, Spain
Viñas Del Cámbrico
Cámbrico is in the Sierra de Francia in the province of Salamanca, Spain. It is within a
national park and European Biosphere where vines were first planted by the Romans. While
wines were traditionally made to pay agricultural workers, the vineyards were abandoned in
the last century due to the difficult conditions and workers relocating to urban areas.
In 1999, Fernando Maillo, the proprietor and chief winemaker at Cámbrico, embarked on an
ambitious project to revive these abandoned vineyards and perform scientific analyses on the different grape varieties. Today, these revived varieties include the indigenous Rufete,
Calabres (a local clone of Grenache), Aragonese (a local clone of Tempranillo) and the rare
Rufete Blanca.
The winery was built in 2006 and has a total of 7 hectares of vineyards, mostly around the village of Villanueva, on slate and granite soils which give a beautiful mineral quality to the wines. Because of steep slopes, the vineyards are terraced, and the labour is highly manual. Cámbrico is a gravity-flow winery with all vinification performed without mechanical pumps to preserve the flavours and textures of the wines.
Granito
We are delighted to offer this wine made from 100% Rufete Blanca, from 20% old vines and 80% replanted vines from mass selection, grown organically. It is a thick-skinned variety with high acidity and complex aroma and flavour profiles. The vineyard is on granite soils at an altitude of 700 m.
Grapes are hand-harvested and sorted. Fermentation is in large oak barrels with indigenous yeasts. The wine is matured in 500-litre oak barrels and bottled without filtration or clarification. The 2019 vintage was hot and dry resulting in excellent quality wines with good acidity, thanks to the elevation of the vineyard. Only 1,818 bottles were produced.
Miranda
This village wine comes from Miranda del Castañar in the heart of the Sierra de Francia. The vines are 80-100 years old, planted on sandy and decomposed granite soils at an elevation of 700 m and organically farmed. These are low yielding vines on steep terraced slopes, so all the vineyard work in manual.
Grapes are destemmed and sorted. Fermentation is in temperature controlled stainless steel tanks with indigenous yeasts. Pump overs are done with gravity-flow and there is minimal cap management with occasional punch downs. The wine is matured in used 500 and 300 litre French oak barrels. The wine is bottled without filtration or clarification. For the 2021 vintage, 3,548 bottles were produced.