2018 Vina Sastre Reserva Ribera del Duero

Site: Las Navas, Carra Santamaría, Fuentenarro, Carranaguix, Valdelayegua, Las Tenadas near the town of La Horra at 800-830m

Viña Sastre’s Reserva is a stunning new release of a historic style from Ribera del Duero not currently made by most producers nowadays, many of whom value quantity over quality. Jesús Sastre has chosen specific parcels from vineyards planted in 1964 around his key village of La Horra, in the appellation’s qualitative center, where vines are planted in the dense, stony clay-calcareous soils. These soils form the backbone of the region’s famous ageable red wines, capable of improving for decades in bottle. He has chosen to make a Reserva selection to make accessible a classic, ageable village wine with the goal of expressing the greatness of his village of La Horra. Grapes are hand-harvested into boxes with a selection in the field, followed by a very critical sorting in the winery; only the best grapes go into Viña Sastre Reserva. His wines are always spontaneously fermented with native yeasts from the vineyard and are never fined or filtered. This process is all a part of Jesús’ vision for making wine in the most natural way possible. The vision is natural, or ancestral: wine at the very highest level.