Montecillo Reserva

Boasting over 145 years of history, Montecillo unquestionably stands as the premier winery of Fuenmayor and the third oldest in La Rioja. The architect of its success was Celestino Navajas Matute, who in 1870 established the winery's first facilities in this village in the Rioja Alta region, in the north of Spain, not far from the Ebro River, an area steeped in winemaking tradition. With a remarkable vision for his time, he sent his son Alejandro to study in Bordeaux. Upon his return, Alejandro purchased the Montecillo estate, which would become the heart of the family business. However, the fate of Montecillo would remain intertwined with this family for only one more generation, as José Luis Navajas (Alejandro's son and Celestino's grandson) had no offspring. Consequently, in 1973 Montecillo was acquired by Osborne.

Since then, the story of Montecillo has been penned by these prestigious bodegas from El Puerto de Santa María, where their operations revolve around several key principles: utmost respect for the vineyard, selection of the finest grapes, and quality aging processes. To this end, Montecillo continues to maintain a strong connection with local viticulturists, experts in the terroir, enabling the winery to extract the highest quality from the 800 plots they oversee in the Rioja Alta. The outcome is a selection of elegant, age-worthy wines that defy time, such as Montecillo Reserva, a red wine composed of tempranillo grapes (averaging 30 years old) with a small percentage of mazuelo (over 50 years old).

In Montecillo Reserva, both varieties are vinified separately. Following the harvest of the tempranillo (grown in chalky clay soils) and the mazuelo (in sandy soils), the grapes arrive at the winery. The tempranillo begins its journey with a bleeding process followed by a pre-fermentative maceration of 3 days (under an inert carbonic snow atmosphere), which prepares it for fermentation in Ganimede® tanks at a controlled temperature of 26 °C. The tempranillo will then be ready after a post-fermentative maceration of 1 week with the skins and a 24-month aging period in French and American oak barrels. Concurrently, the mazuelo ferments in stainless steel tanks. After a gravity decanting, this variety is transferred to underground cement tanks to undergo malolactic fermentation and then aged for 22 months in French and American oak barrels.

Following the final blending, Montecillo Reserva will rest for at least two years in the bottle before its release.