Urbanita
Vintage 2015: 50% Viura, 35 % Garnacha Blanca, 15% Malvasia & Calagreño
Production in 2015 : 1100 bottles
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This small project was initiated in Navaridas, just northwest of Logroño (Álava), at the border between the Basque Country and La Rioja. Luis calls this nomadic viticulture: the wine will vary from year to year. In fact, not only the selected plots may change, but also the final blend may be drastically different from vintage to vintage. The name of this wine, Urbanita, reflects Luis’ love for cities. It’s a wine more reflective about a region and way of making great wines than the desire to make the same wine with the same grapes at the same place, year in, year out.
Born from a collaboration between Pako Medinabeitia, a viticulturist, and Luis who is the oenologist of the project, they both embarked on a journey where their common desire was to push beyond biodynamic agriculture and implement regenerative agriculture, also known as permaculture. This is a form of sustainable agriculture whose tenets are centered on non-intervention for vine culture so that it self-regulates. To achieve this, there is no plowing, no fertilizer, no pesticides, no herbicides or weeding, and above all, no monocultures. The 80-year-old clay and limestone vineyard is located at an altitude of 500 metres and is home to a blend of vines of viura, white Grenache, calagreño and malvasia. Like the Masusta, the artisan winemaking is done with minimal intervention: stainless steel tanks, cooling with frozen water bottles, and low temperature wild yeast fermentation (18 à 22 °C) for 24 hours. The resulting wine is not clarified and undergoes a very soft filtration. The wine is aged 9 months in stainless steel tanks prior to bottling. |