Álvar de Dios Vagüera Doña Blanca 2022
£28.45
The wine
Vagüera comes from a tiny, half-hectare plot of old, ungrafted white vines high above the Toro plain at 950 metres, on red clay over limestone, north-facing and sheltered by cork oak. A field of indigenous white varieties, led by Doña Blanca.
Fermented and aged in neutral oak, it is mineral, textural and quietly profound: lemon peel, orchard fruit and white flowers over a saline, stony palate with a long, refined finish. A singular Spanish white. Serve cool, not cold, with seafood, poultry and richer fish.
The producer
Álvar de Dios
View all Álvar de Dios winesÁlvar de Dios Hernández is one of the most exciting young names in Spanish wine. Raised in El Pego, a village in Toro, he learned his craft in the high Gredos with the team at Comando G before returning home to make wines of rare delicacy from old, often forgotten vineyards.
His approach is uncompromising and old-fashioned in the best sense: organic and biodynamic farming, gnarled bush vines worked by hand and horse, whole-bunch fermentation with native yeasts, and ageing in neutral old oak and concrete. Nothing is added or stripped away. The aim, always, is freshness, light and a clear sense of place.
He works deliberately outside the local DO rules, labelling everything simply as Castilla y León so he can follow the vineyard rather than the regulations. From the sandy, ungrafted vines of Toro to the schist and granite of the wild Arribes del Duero, where the Duero becomes Portugal’s Douro, each wine speaks plainly of its origin.
These are translucent, ethereal reds and whites of real tension and finesse, made in tiny quantities. Among the most eloquent expressions of a new, quietly confident Spain.
