Bodegas Alfredo Maestro, Vinã Almate, Castilla y Leon, Spain

Who - Alfredo Maestro
Where - Ribera del Duero, Castilla y Leon, Spain
What - Red Wine - Garnacha
How - Organic. Vegan. No added sulphites, unfined, unfiltered. Spontaneous fermentation. 

Alfredo Maestro is an entirely self taught winemaker, dancing to his own tune rather than conforming to the restrictions of the Ribera del Duero DO rules. With a degree in economics, his first foray into wine growing was planting a small vineyard behind his father’s house in Peñafiel with no intention of selling the wines, just sharing them with friends and family. But then, by chance, he was offered a vineyard by a farmer who could no longer manage it and although as Alfredo says “it was completely intoxicated from the herbicides and other things that it had been fed” he put the knowledge of biodynamic and organic farming he had gained into practice and slowly but surely rescued the vineyard. At the same time he started working more naturally in the winery, reacting against the “technological” winemaking everyone was being taught. Twenty years later, Alfredo makes wines from vineyards across the region of Castilla y Leon, including Ribera del Duero and Sierra de Gredos, using many different grape varieties. But always with the same aim in mind - to produce wines that truly express the unique character of each vineyard.

Almate is 100% Ribera del Duero but with more life and energy, less blunt power, than very many others.