Manuel Quintano Garnacha Cepas Viejas

Old vine Garnacha (Grenache) from Rioja Alavesa from a selected old block of vines all over 50 years old. Dense red colour verging on purple, aromas of raspberry chocolte and stewed red fruits. Complex flavours of dense berry fruits, milk chocolate, cedar, cacao, balsamic, with rich drying tannins framed subtly by quality oak. The grapes are carefully selected using vibration and sorting tables. The stalks are removed from the grapes without squeezing them. Controlled, long macerations at low temperatures in stainless steel deposits with the cap submerged. The cap is kept moist using the delestage method in order to achieve the best and softest extraction of the polyphenols. Grapes are pressed using a vertical pneumatic press and the malolactic fermentation then takes place. Cold-hot temperature variations are used at specic times to help the malolactic fermentation process and the stabilisation of the wine. The wine is aged for 12 months in barrels of new French oak, then clarified and bottled without filtration. The wine is kept in bottle for a minimum of another 12 months before release. - - Don Diego Quintano y Quintano was born in Labastida, a village in the very heart of Rioja Alavesa. He returned to Rioja in 1783 and devoted his life to viticulture together with his younger brother Manuel. Their main interest was making wines aged in barrels, a new technique which was then unknown in Spain. in 1786 Diego sent his brother Manuel Quintano to Bordeaux to learn the barrel ageing methods used in the Medoc. In 1787 Manuel returned home with a recipe “to make wine as in Bordeaux”. With the first vintage in 1790, the Quintano brothers started the revolutionary winemaking of Tempranillo aged in barrels and were then even able to ship their wines to Cuba. Manuel Quintano and his brother Diego were the true revolutionaries and visionaries of Rioja. This range of wines was created in their honour in the village where they were born and worked. 50 hectares of premium, old vine vineyards make-up the estate behind this unique wine growing project.