Cantayano Blanco - Verdejo

The 2018 Cantayano seemed to have a little more of everything when tasted next to the 2017. More is not always better, but when we talk about more precision, freshness and balance, it's a different story. The wine showed classical hay and straw aromas and a textbook bitter twist in the finish. It reminded me of the classical Verdejo from years ago, with good ripeness, volume, character and freshness. 22,000 bottles produced. It was bottled in August 2018 after some 10 months with lees.

Manuel Cantalapiedra is one of the new upcoming young names in the Rueda zone, but as is often the case with projects like his, he sells the wines without the appellation Rueda, even if the vineyards are within the appellation's limits and at the winery in La Seca, one of the most prominent villages of Rueda. He sells his names under the name of his father, except for a couple of wines with no added sulfur that I didn't taste. This time he showed me two single-vineyard Verdejo bottlings and also a red from the zone of Toro. He has 20 hectares of 10- to 40-year-old vineyards but only makes wine from eight of them, and he sells the rest of the grapes. He has recently purchased a plot of older vines in Alzacarén and is working with a grower from Villanueva de Duero who has an ungrafted plot thought to be about 150 years old. The wines have shown progressively better since I tasted his first wine from 2014. Current production averages 50,000 bottles per vintage; the wines carry organic certification. A name to watch. Luis Gutierrez 91/100