Collection: Castro Ventosa

Castro Ventosa (the windswept castle in Danish) is the family winery where the world-renowned winemaker Raúl Pérez, with over 200 labels on The Wine Advocate's lists, started his meteoric career back in 1988.
The winery, which has 85 hectares of vineyards, is located in Valtuille de Abajo in the Spanish region of Castilla y León and has been in the family since the mid-seventeenth century.
Raúl Pérez is a trained oenologist, and when he took charge of the family winery in 1988, they had lived by selling grapes to other wineries for over 200 years.
However, Raúl Pérez put an end to that, and with this Castro Ventosa started as an independent brand with a focus on the local Mencía grape under the classification Bierzo DO
The Mencía grape is primarily found in the districts of Bierzo, Ribeira Sacra, Valdeorras and Monterrei in the northwestern part of the Iberian Peninsula, and for many it is probably a grape variety that has gone a little under the radar, which is quite undeserved. Raúl Pérez is a keen defender of Mencía as a grape with the potential to produce top quality wines with long aging potential. Unlike others, he likes to avoid comparing Mencía with Pinot Noir from Burgundy, but rather believes that similarities can be found with Syrah from the Rhône Valley. Raúl Pérez stopped as acting winemaker at Castro Ventosa at the start of the new millennium, but production continues in his spirit and with him as a consultant. This means that the wines are produced with an extreme focus on gentle treatment of the grapes, both in the field and in the wine cellar, and with aging in large barrels to minimize the influence of the wood on the wines. Over 80% of the vines are over 50 years old, and the vineyards are spread over 400 plots with calcareous and sandy soil, located at an altitude between 530 and 630 meters above sea level.