2020 | Veronica Ortega | CAL Godello

This wine has an excellent texture, most attractive mulberry and brambly fruit and floral hints with some liquorice and herbal notes – so delicious and easy to drink.

Producer Information

Veronica Ortega was brought up in Cadiz with five elder brothers and a famous bullfighting father, but catching the wine bug in the 2000s she moved away to Priorat where she worked with Alvaro Palacios and Daphné Glorian (Clos Erasmus), then Burn Cottage in Central Otago NZ, Niepoort in the Douro, Comte Armand and then a season at DRC in Burgundy, followed finally by a spell with Domaine Combier in Crozes. Upon her return to Spain, she worked with Raúl Perez in Bierzo from whose cellar she experimented before setting out definitively with her project in 2012. She loves the region of Bierzo, for its history, the authenticity of its wines, its strong Atlantic influence, and a variety in mencía that is very sensitive to its soil types and altitude. It reminds her a lot of the syrah she worked with in the northern Rhône for its wild nature and savoury character, and comments that in blind tastings the two grapes are often confused. Veronica has gradually pieced together her holdings of 5.7ha of old vines through leasing and buying, though she has struggled to buy plots, noting that "locals are tied to their land, and prefer to own it while doing nothing with it, rather than selling!" The help and network of her friend Ricardo Palacios (Descendientes J. Palacios) proved instrumental in securing top terroirs. In addition, she buys grapes from growers working well in the vines, although she and her team choose the picking date and carry out the harvest. She follows organic practices in her own vineyards and is in the process of converting to biodynamics. Her range has grown from only one red – ROC – in the first year, to five reds and two whites. Her first ever made white bottling, the electric godello Cal (that came to fame partly because the vines are planted in limestone, a very rare soil in Bierzo) was discontinued following the 2020 vintage – Raúl Perez took over the lease of that particular plot rather unexpectedly.

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