El Escolladero 2024

A red wine of cool precision. Arturo and Kike de Miguel Blanco classify their wines by origin rather than by ageing time, and for them El Escolladero represents the single vineyard: clearly structured, fresh, with the calm of old vines.

The vineyard lies in Ábalos, one of the four municipalities across which the estate's 72 plots are spread. The vines are rooted in calcareous clay soils at 600 metres of altitude; in total, the estate's 30 hectares reach up to 720 metres. The cool nights at these altitudes preserve the acidity and shape the wine's minerality.

85% Tempranillo and 15% Graciano from vines planted in 1950. The often-terraced plots allow no mechanisation, so harvesting is done by hand. In the cellar, the wine ferments spontaneously with its own yeasts, partly as whole clusters; the brothers forgo cultured yeasts, excessive sulphuring and aggressive filtration. It is aged in 600-litre barrels, with a deliberately short ageing period so the oak doesn't overshadow the fruit.

Dark cherry and dark berries, followed by herbs and fine spice notes. The attack is fresh, the tannin fine-grained and taut, the acidity carries through to a mineral-tinged finish. The 14.0% vol. integrates seamlessly, the wine remains dry and clearly defined.

The vineyards are farmed organically, with an increasing orientation towards biodynamic principles. Artuke belongs to the Rioja & Roll movement and the Futuro Vinador collective. The foundation was laid by the grandfather, who in the 1950s acquired a fallow plot of land at high altitude, earning him the nickname "El Loco".