White Wine Belondrade Quinta Apolonia 2025, 75cl VT Castilla Y Léon, Espagne

Belondrade Quinta Apolonia is our most varietal interpretation of the Verdejo grape and takes its name from Didier Belondrade’s eldest daughter, Apolline Belondrade. It is a clean and direct wine, refreshing yet surprisingly deep and complex. Its profile and character are quite different from those of its older sibling, “Belondrade y Lurton”, the iconic wine of the Belondrade estate. Apolonia can be seen as a reflection of the true face of Verdejo. Winemaking: The selected musts undergo spontaneous fermentation with indigenous yeasts, carried out separately according to the vineyard plot and harvest date. The wines are then aged on their lees in French oak barrels. After 9 to 12 months of ageing, the final selection and blending take place. The wine is subsequently aged in bottle for a minimum of six months before release. After five or six years, it begins to reveal the complexity and nuances of a great wine. The 2025 vintage at BELONDRADE was an exercise in balancing water, temperature and constant work. The cycle began with a warmer-than-usual winter and prolonged periods of fog lasting until late spring, creating pockets of humidity. As the vineyards are farmed organically, the scope for intervention is necessarily more limited, making continuous and particularly demanding vineyard monitoring essential to keep disease pressure under control. In addition, spring was very rainy but mild, and the absence of high temperatures during this period delayed budbreak, lengthening the growing cycle and favouring slower, more controlled ripening. Summer, by contrast, changed the pace. It was dry and extremely hot, with episodes of hail in several vineyard plots that affected yields. The final balance was a harvest considerably smaller than that of 2024, but with one clear advantage: the grapes that escaped damage arrived at the winery in exceptional sanitary condition, under optimal conditions for preserving freshness and acidity. Harvesting began on 1 September, gradually and in stages, guided by constant sampling to pick each plot at its optimum level of ripeness. Thanks to the excellent work of the vineyard and winery teams — together with the rigorous triple selection of the grapes — the harvest campaign concluded on 18 September.