Telmo Rodríguez El Transistor Rueda Verdejo 2025
£23.25
The wine
El Transistor is the Rueda in the range, made from Verdejo grown on old bush vines on the stoniest ground in the appellation rather than the flat, machine-harvested plantings that supply most of it.
Rueda is overwhelmingly a stainless steel appellation, built on cool, early-picked Verdejo bottled young and drunk within the year. This one is fermented and aged in wood, which is closer to how Verdejo was handled before the modern style took hold, and it is built to develop in bottle rather than to be finished by the following summer. Telmo Rodríguez and Pablo Eguzkiza founded their Compañía de Vinos in 1994 and have spent three decades travelling Spain to recover forgotten vineyards and near-extinct varieties, from Rioja and Toro to Málaga and the Sierra de Gredos.
The producer
Telmo Rodríguez
View all Telmo Rodríguez winesTelmo Rodríguez is one of the most restless and influential figures in modern Spanish wine. For three decades he has travelled the country reviving forgotten vineyards and near-lost varieties, from Rueda and Rioja to Toro, Málaga and Cebreros, always with the same conviction that great wine is written in old vines.
His approach is that of a vineyard archaeologist. Where others saw abandoned parcels, he saw heritage worth saving, working plot by plot to coax honesty and clarity from each terroir rather than imposing a house signature.
Basa is his benchmark Rueda, a Verdejo of aromatic lift and stony freshness that has become a modern classic. Corriente brings the same clear-eyed craft to Rioja, a red of bright fruit and easy elegance that wears its region lightly.
Approachable yet deeply serious, these are wines that reward curiosity. Explore the work of a winemaker who gave Spain's overlooked corners their voice back.
