Angel Rodriguez Martinsancho Rueda Verdejo 2021

There is still only one wine produced at this wonderfully idiosyncratic Estate. This benchmark Verdejo (100%) takes its name from a 17th-century vineyard or ‘majuelo’ called Martínsancho. The oldest vines in this museum vineyard are pushing 200 years and are something to behold: all bush-grown and rooted in ancient alluvial gravels, some 30 metres deep. Massale cuttings from these venerable vines were used to expand the original plot in the 1970s, and it is from these 40-plus-year-old youngsters that this wine is now crafted. The grapes are slowly pressed into two huge glass-lined tanks where the juice ferments naturally before being transferred, via gravity, to the underground 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 near 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.