2018 Condado de Haza 20 Aldeas

Condado de Haza is a Ribera del Duero region winery founded by Alejandro Fernandez, who also started Tinto Pesquera in the same region. Fernandez noticed an abandoned hillside on the river bank in the 1980s that he believed would be ideal as a vineyard. After years of negotiations, Fernandez purchased the hillside and named the property after the nearby town of de Haza. The hillside is now covered in nearly 450 acres of Tempranillo vineyards, which produced the estate’s first vintage in 1994.

Castilla y León, as this region is called in Spanish, is a large region in northeastern Spain that includes nearly twenty percent of Spain’s total land. It encompasses eight provinces and five appellations. The best known of the appellations is Ribera del Duero, though the appellations Toro and Bierzo are also gaining international reputations for fine wine. The region is largely a high, flat plateau and red grapes account for much of what is grown in Ribera del Duero. The other appellations are Rueda, known for white wine, and Cigales. Bierzo is known for the full flavored white wine Godello.

Think leather and cherries together for Tempranillo wines. This wine looks lighter than it is. It can be medium or full bodied, but its thin-skinned, big grapes, give it a more transparent appearance. It is grown in Spain, Portugal, the U.S. and Australia.