“Wine is not really made in the vineyard but the winery, although quality starts in the vineyard and in order to produce a great wine, great grapes are needed,” says José Manuel Pérez Ovejas, a leading winemaker in Ribera del Duero. After his departure from Hermanos Pérez Pascuas, the family winery, he set up on his own and launched Dominio de Calogía. 2019 is his first vintage.
Named after the site where the winery is built, Calogía is one of the estate’s largest vineyards covering six hectares. Altogether, José Manuel Pérez owns 20 hectares of Tempranillo planted either by himself or by his father within a five-kilometre radius between the villages of Roa and Pedrosa del Duero in the province of Burgos. Most of them are bush wines. Conversion to organic farming is currently underway. The soils are predominantly clay-loam with some limestone areas. The average elevation is around 840 metres.
The oldest vineyard was planted 70 years ago. Neatly trained, the vines stand high up from the ground with their branches wide open so that the bunches are spaced and well aerated. Limiting yields to around 4,000 kg/Ha is a hallmark quality feature of all Pérez Ovejas vineyards.
The practical and functional winery is designed to maximise attention to detail to "work in a more conscientious way than when handling relatively high volumes of wine," says José Manuel. High ceilings, spaciousness and strict cleanliness -he admits it’s something of an obsession- were his priorities. While cold maceration is used to extract aromas and fix colour, the Osiris system is designed to capture CO2 from the fermentation process and break the cap from below: "We manage to achieve intense maceration without moving the wine too much," he points out. Ageing takes place in French oak barrels that are replaced after three uses.
Arguably one of the greatest years ever in Ribera del Duero, 2019 is the first vintage of Dominio de Calogía. The wines were fermented in a rented space and finished the ageing process in Pérez Ovejas' brand new winery.
Dominio de Calogía has set itself the target of producing 70,000 bottles split between three wines. The flagship red Dominio de Calogía (35,000 bottles, €74), aged for 12 months in Allier French oak, bears the hallmark of its maker: quality tannins and higher than average acidity for the region, ensuring good cellaring potential. Doble M (just over 12,000 bottles, €42) comes from La Loma, a Tempranillo plot in Roa that offers a fresher style. The top red Cuvée S (3,500 bottles, €170) comes from a vineyard of just 1.5 hectares. It is aged for 26 months in French Allier oak because of its greater ageing potential.
The wines are sold en primeur and through an allocation system.
