A few weeks ago, we visited out great friend Aurelio García in Valquejigoso winery where he is the oenologist manager... it's a really nice visit!! Aurelio gave us a master class about wines... We are very sorry that we could not explain all the visit in this post, we think we would need to write a book.
The Valquejigoso farm is located in southwest of Madrid area, in the Villamanta village at 45 km of Madrid city. It is a nice farm of 970 he where you can see wild boars, deers, fallow deers, roe deers ... without doubt, a very beautiful farm and a paradise for hunting lovers. Our visit focused on wine world, and without any doubt, it is one of the best site in Spain for this aim. The vineyards are pampered like a baby and the winery has been built in technical underground rooms.
Regarding vineyards, there is an area of 47he where there are 180,000 grapevines. They work with different varieties, among which highlight varieties such as cabernet sauvingon, cabernet franc, syrah, petit verdot, merlot, tempranillo, graciano, garnacha, viognier, sauvignon blanc and autochthonous varieties like albillo real and negral. The variability of the vineyard due to its orography, topography, etc., together with the different cultivated grapes, make the farm should be divided into 83 micro-fields. They are worked with a natural viticulture concept and the employees carry out different works throughout the year (winter pruning, spring pruning, analysis of soil, feaf-surface balances, canopy driving, spring vintage, watering, etc.). These tasks are carried out using different methods depending on the field, but with a unitary objective: reaching that each field can express their own personality year after year. The harvest is done by hand, collecting at the optimum moment each of the vineyards ... a millimetric work in order to have an optimal grape.
After that, we visited the winery... it is a special building since it is underground. We recommend you to know this innovative building. It has the most advanced technology of the wine sector because it is necessary to have a perfect control of each one of the variables in each one of the of wine elaboration processes. In addition, they are facilities that allow him to work the grapes and wines very fine so wine will have a special personality that will represent its source field. Equipments such as a cold room to cool the grapes (when coming from the field), selection tables, gravity work to store the wine and for the extraction of color, processes of temperature control, bottling, and others have the most advanced technologies here. The winery has 53 stainless steel tanks of different sizes, 40 French oak barrels of 4,000 litres and over 800 barrels of French oak (18 months average age). A modern laboratory, which allows them to carry out R & D to deepen the knowledge of their vineyards and their wines. The bottle room is especially nice and the atmosphere is unbeatable. We will have to visit the winery in the middle of the grape harvest to see it in one of the most important moments of the winemaking ... it will be very interesting.
Finally, we could taste some fantastic wines that they are selling around the world: Valquejigoso V1, Valquejigoso V2, Dehesa Valquejigoso DV and Mirlo Blanco.
Versión en español.
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