The fourth generation of one of the great wine sagas in Bordeaux, François Lurton produces wines in Spain, France, Argentina and Chile.
Although he is largely unknown in Spain, François Lurton has been working in Rueda since 1992, where he arrived with his brother Jacques to produce Sauvignon Blanc for Sainsbury's, the British supermarket giant. They soon discovered the virtues of the local Verdejo variety and the old Tempranillo vineyards in Toro and decided to start their own project in both regions. They still produce wines, mainly destined for export, under the brand Hermanos Lurton (the winery and the vineyard of their subsidiary El Albar Lurton were sold to Torres in 2014).
Fully confident of the potential to produce quality wines in Toro and Rueda, François Lurton teamed up with winemakers Dany and Michel Rolland, personal friends since the 1980s, to create Bodegas Burdigala (now Campo Elíseo) in 2000. At present, François has overall control of the business and manages it with the help of his niece, Mathilde Lurton, as director and winemaker Germán Nieto, who oversees the day to day running of the winery.
The facilities in Toro are practical but the Lurtons speak proudly of the winery in La Seca, in the heart of Rueda. Located in a restored 18th century manor house, it has a network of 500 m² underground cellars where the wines are aged in concrete barrels, casks, amphorae and foudres at constant temperatures all year round. Grape reception, pressing and must decanting in stainless steel tanks are all done in a new facility built across from the main house, to which the must is transferred by gravity.
Lurton, who is strongly in favour of greater land segmentation in the DO Rueda, works with his own vineyards, aged between 25 and 40 years, in Camino del Puerto, an area stretching from La Seca to the river. He also buys grapes to make part of their second wine called Cuvée Alegre Verdejo (50,000 bottles, €12.70) which is fermented in a variety of vessels (stainless steel, cement and oak) to achieve complexity, and for 100% of his Cuvée Alegre Rosé (5,000 bottles, €11.50), made from Tempranillo fermented with its lees in concrete eggs and barrels. Campo Elíseo (10,000 bottles, €24.90) is their top wine in Rueda, aged in new barrels for a year without malolactic fermentation. Freshness and volume on the palate are what they look for as well as good cellaring capacity.
Campo Elíseo owns 20 hectares of vineyards in Toro and they purchase grapes grown on 15 hectares owned by local growers. The vineyards have been certified organic since 2015 (in Rueda the organic seal was obtained in 2020). As is usual in the area, part of the vineyard is old or even pre-phylloxera and often planted directly on the ground without grafting. Campo Elíseo seeks to harvest ripe fruit so that the wines can undergo relatively long macerations of approximately 20 to 30 days.
The big challenge in this dry and hot area is to make lighter wines, so Lurton has an experimental vineyard with a high density of vines per hectare to harvest grapes that ripen earlier and with less alcohol and, therefore, wines in line with current consumption trends. Irrigation is also part of the plan to prevent the plants from shutting down in August because of the lack of water —when that occurs, the grapes concentrate their sugars, resulting in low acidity, tannic wines.
Their Toro wines share brand and label design with those of Rueda and only the name of the appellation changes. Cuvée Alegre (30,000 bottles, €19.50) is 100% Tinta de Toro sourced from different plots which are aged separately in barrels for 10 months while Campo Elíseo (8,000 bottles, €38.90), a more voluptuous and deep red, is made from 50-year-old vines and is aged in new barrels for 16 to 18 months. Neither of these wines have added sulfites, except for the shipping, and both Toro and Rueda wines are fermented with native yeasts.
The bodega in La Seca offers a variety of wine tourism experiences, ranging from different types of tours of the cellar and the vineyards followed by a tasting of wines from Rueda and Toro to a balloon trip with lunch in the vineyard.
