Magna Vides is a dream come true for Pablo Arranz and Andrea Sanz in Ribera del Duero. It all began with the inheritance of an old vineyard from Pablo's family, which brought back memories of the harvests in La Aguilera, his grandparents' village in Burgos.
In 2005, Pablo and his wife Andrea left their jobs (he was a nursery teacher and she had studied political science) to become winegrowers in Ribera del Duero. Andrea started from scratch: she studied oenology locally and learnt how to work the vines and drive a tractor. Faced with a lack of generational change, many of the older growers in the village offered them their vineyards to buy or look after.
Nowadays they grow 22 hectares. Most of them are in La Aguilera, with a few in Quintana del Pidio and Gumiel de Izán. Andrea and Pablo have named many of them after the people who farmed them for so long. Just over half are old vines, between 70 and 110 years old, and the rest are new plantings from cuttings taken from their own vineyards.
Their own grand cru is El Sardal, where they look after many north-facing plots with shallow soils with sand and some clay over limestone. It is located in the Gromejón river valley, past Gumiel de Izán, between La Aguilera and Quintana del Pidio. Pablo and Andrea have also bought some vineyards on the opposite south-facing slope, in the village of Quintana del Pidio, and further on, close to the plateau, where their oldest vine stands: a tiny 0.2-hectare plot planted in 1860 on sandy soil.
They farm organically and biodynamically, but are not certified. The couple started out (and still do) as grape suppliers, with prestigious clients such as Aalto of Bodegas Resalte in Peñafiel, who buy around 60% of their grapes. Their first wine saw the light on the 2011 vintage - just a few barrels sold among family and friends. Now they produce 30,000 bottles, 90% of which are sold abroad. Winemaking takes place in rented facilities, but they have acquired a historic cellar in the old bodega district of La Aguilera, and they are gradually restoring it.
Their wines benefit from the blend of varieties that distinguish the old vineyards they work with, including varying percentages of Bobal, Garnacha and several white varieties, along with the dominant Tempranillo or Tinto Fino.
There is an interesting experimental range called Alma de Cántaro, which includes very limited quantities of minor varieties such as Bobal and Garnacha, which offer a different profile of Ribera del Duero. The main range includes the white Alba Vides Albillo (around €32 in Spain, 1,200 bottles) and two reds: Vera Vides (€15, 20,000 bottles) and Magna Vides (€29, almost 5,000 bottles). The two reds offer distinctive freshness thanks to the blend of varieties, with Magna Vides gaining in depth due to the fact that it is made from 100-year-old vineyards.
