“The maximum expression of the authentic Segovian Verdejo transformed into living history”. This is how Pedro Ruiz Aragoneses, CEO of the Alma Carraovejas group, defines his great white fruit from one of the most important redoubts of pre-phylloxera vines in the world. In fact, some of its impressive and twisted vines, which are beautiful vegetable sculptures with whimsical shapes, were planted in vases in the Segovian municipality of Nieva some 200 years ago.
It is one of the oldest registered and certified organic vineyards in the Rueda designation of origin, although the wine is currently marketed as Vino de la Tierra de Castilla y León. Pedro Ruiz assures that "they are the most impressive vineyards I have seen in my life." Ossian is, in the words of the winery, "a historical and primitive legacy" and "a gift of nature."
The Ossian Vides y Vinos winery project was founded in 2005 by Javier Zacagnini, who also founded Aalto and Sei Solo in the DO Ribera del Duero, with the winemakers Ismael Gozalo and Pierre Millemann. In 2013 it passed into the hands of Alma Carraovejas, who have recognized that then "we were not really aware of the unmatched value of this particular, unique and genuine terroir". Pedro Ruiz adds that “Ossian is a historical, viticultural and cultural heritage that does not belong to us. We are just that link in the chain. How to better leave what we have found for future generations is one of our priorities”.
In this way, he points out that “it is a privilege to be able to manage this legacy that does not even belong to our ancestors. I don't even feel like our property." Now they are about to start the construction of a new winery, with a façade that will include the typical constructions of the area with slate and boulders. Pedro Ruiz affirms that "we are in a precious moment".
Ossian, whose name is inspired by an Irish legend, is a 100% Verdejo son of what is considered the cradle of this variety. Niel Beckett and Juan Manuel Bellver highlighted this wine as the best Spanish white in their book The 1001 Wines You Must Try Before You Die. In this project, as in the rest of the group, they are focusing especially on respectful ecological viticulture, including pruning, on the recovery of the rich ancestral plant heritage that was about to disappear and on goblet planting.
With a markedly perfectionist spirit, his main obsession is to express the naked essence of varieties and terroirs. This includes giving uniqueness to their plots, orientations, soil diversity or ancestral genetic wealth (they have created banks of autochthonous biotypes to preserve and reproduce this unique plant material). Their wines have become more stylized, leaving behind the excesses of aging in wood and, as Pedro Ruiz insists, they are pursuing "greater precision".
Each winery in the group is identified with a tree. At Ossian Vides y Vinos it is pine. An imperial eagle in flight like the ones that cross the Castilian skies is the image of the group. In their vineyards they have arranged everything from nesting boxes for birds to hotels for insects.
Ossian Vides y Vinos affirms that "the soils that surround Nieva represent the radical difference of its environment". They are sand and boulders that prevented the arrival of the devastating phylloxera plague in the area, which devastated a large part of the European vineyard. The soils of the countryside to the north of Segovia have Paleozoic materials, formed about 500 million years ago, and Tertiary soils, from 25 million years ago. The biological richness contributes, according to Ossian, "a greater complexity to the interpretation of each plot".
This wine is the result of a separate vinification assembly of each of its small plots, located on the two banks of the Voltoya River, a tributary of the Eresma. The vineyards are planted between 900 and 1,000 meters above sea level. The technical direction is in the hands of the oenologist Almudena Calvo, and that of viticulture in those of Javier Blasco.
The viticulture follows the ecological dictates with certification. They have recovered traditional local methods to provide a longer life to their hundred-year-old vines, some of which show surprising vigour. They also try to raise the size of the plants to prevent the Verdejo grapes, which is a creeping variety, from ending up touching the ground. And the vines also stand out, with the desire to activate some grandchildren that allow them a foliar protection for the grapes to weather the unrepentant summer sunstrokes. During the winter, temperatures of up to 15º Celsius below zero are reached, which contrasts with some dry and hot summers, which exceed 30º C on a recurring basis.
The winery classifies the 2020 vintage as an "extraordinary" vintage. The fall of 2019 was already marked by mild temperatures and slightly higher rainfall than usual. January and February were unusually warm, bringing spring forward. In mid-March the vines began to weep, but sprouting did not take place until a month later as cold days arrived. It even snowed on March 31. May was a month of mild temperatures and abundant rainfall. Flowering came the first week of June.
The summer was hot and dry, as usual in the area. Veraison began at the end of August. The harvest began on September 8, and lasted until the 30th of the same month. The grapes, selected from the vineyards themselves, were harvested in 15-kilo boxes. After light pressing, the must was transferred to vats and barrels made of fine-grained, medium-toasted French oak, with a capacity of between 228 and 600 litres. Alcoholic fermentation is carried out with autochthonous yeasts. Aging on fine lees was practiced for 9 months. It was blended and bottled in the summer of 2021. It was released on the market after one year in the bottle. It has great aging potential. The Wine Advocate, the most influential guide in the world, has awarded it 94 points.
Ossian 2020 is, most likely, the best vintage marketed to date by this Nieva winery. They define it as "the purest essence and the most faithful reflection of its origin".
It is pale straw in color, clear and bright. It is aromatic and quite expressive, although it is more of a wine on the palate. Tasty, with very good acidity and a brilliant finish showing a saline tip that makes you salivate. It exhibits notes of stone fruit (peach) and citrus (lemon). With a glyceric tactile sensation but stylized, long and fresh. Very elegant, with very well integrated aging in wood and with 13.5º of alcohol.
Everything about him is obsessively arranged and clicks together like a Tetris. From the winery they speak of a “surprising delicacy”, and also of “length in a restful finish with which the authentic character of the Nieva environment appears”.
Ideal to harmonize with the pickled oyster with smoked Osetra caviar or with the sea bass belly (matured in kombu), butter, dairy products, spinach and Baeri caviar from the large Ambvivium restaurant in Peñafiel (Valladolid), owned by the group. From the winery they also propose dishes such as suckling lamb, yolk and mint dumpling; peas from Maresme and enlisted from Huelva or the veal gizzard, borage and onion broth.
Pedro Ruiz Aragoneses is the fourth of five children of a traditional Segovian restaurateur who made his fortune serving suckling pigs. He started out studying business, but soon saw that he didn't like it. He ended up studying psychology, but has also ended up acknowledging that "I wasn't too excited until I discovered systemic psychology, which really changed everything." He eventually trained in viticulture. At the age of 24, his father, José María, who was a sommelier when there were no sommeliers in Spain, entrusted him with taking the reins of Pago de Carraovejas.
This winery was built in Peñafiel with the intention of producing a riverine red, made with Tempranillo, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, with which to irrigate the suckling pigs at the Mesón José María in the heart of Segovia. Pago de Carraovejas began in 1988 with just 10 hectares of its own vineyards. In 2007 they already had about 80, and currently there are 220 hectares, of which 160 are vineyards. The first wine was from the 1991 vintage.
Today they are a group with two wineries in the Ribera del Duero (Pago de Carraovejas and Milsetentayseis), the one in Nieva, one in the DO Madrid (Marañones, in San Martín de Valdeiglesias) and two more in Galicia (Viña Meín and Emilio Rojo). . Next year they will be released in the DO Calificada Rioja, in their new winery in the municipality of Leza. It is an exciting project, with a functional but very beautiful winery integrated into this town in the Rioja Alavesa (Aiurri), where they have been working for three years now. Together they make around 1.3 million bottles a year, of which they export 85% of the total. The United States, Mexico and the Dominican Republic are its main international markets.
They have also started producing honey from their own swarms. Pedro Ruiz affirms that "companies are not numbers". Today they employ about 250 workers. All of them, in their corporate attire, wear their first names.
