Alfredo Maestro Tinto Valdecastrillo

Alfredo Maestro Tejero's vineyards are located within the Ribera del Duero D.O., but Alfredo prefers not to participate in the D.O., so the wines are Vino de la Tierra de Castillo y Leon.

His are completely natural wines, with no sulphur added in the vineyard or the winery. All vineyard treatments are natural, and many of them follow, Bio-dynamic practices.

The affable iconoclast Alfredo Maestro started making wine in the late 1990's when he planted his first vineyard Almate on the Rio Duraton near his native town of Penafiel in the Ribera del Duero.

From the beginning he set out to farm his vineyard, Organically. In the cellar, Alfredo was teaching himself enology from a book, using every winemaking trick to make a "correct" Ribera del Duero wine: yeasts, acid, enzymes, tannins, colour-enhancers, etc. In the early 2000's Alfredo had a revelation.

He started questioning as to why, as an, Organic farmer, was he using chemicals to make the finished wine. He began eliminating exogenous products and, in 2003, began making wine without any additives, including sulfur.

Over the past few years, he has been searching out abandoned or neglected vineyards around the Ribera del Duero and Madrid to convert to, Organic farming. Gradually, Alfredo has increased production, and now has 9 hectares and two small bodegas, one located in his native Penafiel in the Ribera del Duero, and the other in the Navalcarnero area, southwest of Madrid. He has emerged as one of the most lauded and dynamic natural winemakers in all of Spain.

Tempranillo,

From a single vineyard, called La Ladera, of 70-year-old Tinto Fino vines grown on clay-loam soils at 1050 meters elevation

The Castrillo de Duero is 100% Tempranillo. Fermented in small stainless steel vats, and aged for 16 months in old French oak barrels.

Intense blackberry fruit aromas and flavours, just enough oak to provide subtle nuanced spice and structure.

This wines, Bio-dynamic classification is uncertified.