Ángel Rodríguez Rueda Verdejo Martínsancho 2021

This benchmark Verdejo takes its name from a 17th-century vineyard, or majuelo, called El Pago de Martínsancho. In the 1970’s, massale cuttings from these venerable vines were used to expand the original plot, and it is from these 40-plus-year-old youngsters (all bush-grown and rooted in ancient alluvial gravels, some 30 metres deep) that this wine is now crafted.

The grapes were slowly pressed into two huge glass-lined tanks where the juice fermented naturally before being transferred, via gravity, to the cellars for undisturbed aging in century-old 5,000-litre oak casks (or cubas). Importantly, the barrel cellar here is underground—unusual for Spain. It holds at close to 10ºC year-round, enabling the Rodríguez clan to avoid sulphur additions during winemaking, and to leave the wine to mature slowly, only on its fine lees.