Mikaela

D.O. Ribera del Jucar

Casas de Benítez in the province of Cuenca

Field blended vineyards comprised of 95% Bobal and 5% mixed indigenous varieties including Pardilla & Moravia Agria.

Aurelio García and Micaela Rubio own 6.6Ha of proprietary vineyards south of the city of Cuenca in the villages of Casas de Benítez and Pozoamargo.

1932-1945

Traditional dry-farmed, biodynamic, manual viticulture. The vines are head-trained and the vineyards are plowed by horse.

Thousands of years ago these vineyard sites lay in the basis of the Río Jucar, and as a result, are characterized by a surface completely covered in large rounded stones - the depth of this stony surface varies between 5 and 20CM. Below these large pebbles there is a layer of iron rich red clay intermixed with sand and gravel for the next 1-1.5M, followed by solid limestone rich mother rock.

Continental Mediterranean climate characterized by long and cold winters followed by short and hot summers, with drastic temperature changes between day and night due to the altitude. 500-650L/M2 precipitation per year.

After a rigorous sorting of the clusters, 50% of the clusters are destemmed without crushing. When building the maceration, the grapes and clusters are transferred by gravity to 3,300L stainless steel vats. After a 4-5 day pre-fermentative maceration at low temperatures, the wine begins fermentation spontaneously. Maceration is very minimal. The wine undergoes a very gentle press in a vertical basket press.

Malolactic and 14 months of aging are carried out in neutral 500L French oak puncheon, followed by six months in oval concrete vats.

Mikaela is produced from vineyards in the basin of the Rio Jucar, in the southeast of the province of Cuenca, in the villages of Pozoamargo and Casas de Benitez. The soils are covered with a surface of large rounded stones, owing their origins to this historic river. Thankfully, this area was also spared from the mass uprooting and commercialization of Spanish viticulture in the 60's and 70's, and as a result, has a tremendous diversity of field blended microparcels planted to Bobal and myriad other indigenous varieties. This is a little known area with a rich viticultural history, but climactically and geographically is the closest approximation in Spanish viticulture to the vineyards of Châteauneuf-du-Pape.