DO
Valdepeñas is situated in the south of the Castilla-La
Mancha region, south-east of Madrid. Valdepeñas, meaning
'Valley of the Stones', is one of Spain's oldest wine-producing
regions. The region is centred around the city of
Valdepeñas, and is irrigated by the Río Jabalón,
a tributary of the Río Guadiana. Its wines, which have
a long tradition, are produced from the Tempranillo
(known locally as Cencibel), Macabeo
and Airén
varieties.
Bodegas Navarro López was founded in 1904 by Don Juan Megia Sánchez and continued through various generations of his family until being bought in 1989 by the current owner Don Doroteo Navarro Donado who began an on-going process of radical modernisation. Navarro Lopez now produces a wide selection of wines ranging from their top-quality DO Gran Reservas to their Vino de la Tierra wines. The Navarro Lopez Old Vines range is produced exclusively using grapes from their own vineyards of about 190 hectares. Their brand new immaculate bodega, located 6 km outside the town of Valdepeñas, is completely family-owned and rigorously managed by the owner’s two sons who have a single clear objective, to produce modern style wines of maximum quality. In order to achieve this goal, the bodega’s first step was to modernise completely, involving the installation of new cooling tanks, stainless steel tanks and 4000 new oak barrels (70% American and 30% French Allier). This was then followed by a major change in production, a move towards making single varietal wines and ageing in new oak barrels without renouncing the traditional characteristics of the Valdepeñas wines.
The current policy of the winemaker, Virtudes Gómez, is to make modern style wines with a good balance of fruit and oak. She is currently increasing the bodega’s stock level of mainly American oak barrels to produce wines created specifically for international markets. Today, the bodega’s installations have a capacity of 3 million litres. The Tempranillo grapes used in the Navarro López Old Vines range come from 30 year old vines in lime-based soils in Campo de Calatrava in Valdepeñas, situated at 716m above sea level. The grapes are harvested at the beginning of September and go through a carefully monitored fermentation under controlled temperatures.
NEW!
Click on the underlined grape varieties
for more information.
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