Verónica Ortega

Description Verónica Ortega

Verónica Ortega was raised in Cádiz, Andalusia. After finishing her studies, se traveled all around the world and made wine for some of the greatest names on the wine planet. She is a proud pupil of Raúl Pérez, who passed to her his love of the Mencía grape. Since 2012, she has been running her own, very small estate, also in Valtuille de Abajo.

Regions of Verónica Ortega

Castilla y León

Appellations of Verónica Ortega

D.O. Bierzo

Winemaker Verónica Ortega

Owner Verónica Ortega

Founding 2010

Links

History Verónica Ortega

Verónica Ortega was raised in Cádiz, where her father was a renowned bull-fighter (hence her logo, a sword in a wine-barrel). After her studies, she travelled all around the world, acquiring an impressive CV, working for great names like Clos Erasmus, in Priorat, Alvaro Palacios, Comte Armand and La Romanée-Conti in Burgundy, Laurent Combier in the Rhône valley, Burn Cottage in New Zealand, Niepoort in the Douro and last but nor least, with Raúl Pérez in El Bierzo.

Verónica Ortega
C. Principal de Puente 4
Valtuille de Abajo
Leon

Varieties Verónica Ortega

Mencia is the main grape here. This variety reminds her a lot of the Pinot Noir or the Syrah from certain terroirs - this is what we thought, also. What she likes particularly in Mencia is the fact that its expresses the terroir very well, like Pinot Noir. With Mencía too, the moment of harvesting is crucial. One has only a few days to produced well -balanced wines, for the grape yields naturally low acidy and not very structured wines. If one is harvesting too soon, the wines are too rustic; if one waits too long, the fruit appears a little 'tired'. For her white wine, she uses Godello, a grape which is also famous in the Valdeorras appellation. For her reds, as she works mainly with field-blends, her Mencías often also contain some bunches of the white Godello and Doña Blanca. The wines are all the more balanced.

Terroir Verónica Ortega

Verónica likes the poor, sandy soils of Vatuille where most of her parcelles are located. But she also owns some parcels in very particular terroirs like that of San Juan de la Mata - a 650 metre-high vine, on pure limestone. Or Cobrana, near Bembire, where she makes her Cobrana cuvée, from 8 different parcels, at an altitude of some 700 metres. Here the soils are mainly blue schists with clay, which helps preserve the acidity in the grape. This is a very different kind of slate to that which one finds in Corullón, for instance.

Vinification Verónica Ortega

For her 'Quite' cuvée, her entry-level wine which makes up half of her production (40,000 bottles in total), Veronica de-stems the bunches of grapes, letting them macerate and ferment in stainless steel tanks. The maceration is quite short. Then 80% of the wine is aged in large vats or barrels, while the reste goes into 800 litre dolias (often wrongly called amphoras). The other wines are vinified in whole bunches, not de-stemmed, in large 5,000 litre vats, and are aged in vats or dolia. There is as little extraction as possible, so as to keep the freshness in the wine. Almost no sulphur is added (the pH's of the wines are very low). On the whole, everything takes place very naturally. On certain parcels, Verónica uses biodynamic methods.

75 cl.

96+ R. Parker

Biodynamic

Cobrana 2023

Castilla y León

Verónica Ortega

D.O. Bierzo

75 cl.

red

44,10 € /pc

36,45 € excl. VAT

Assembly

Mencia (79%), Godello (9%), Doña Blanca (7%), Palomino (5%)

Content

75 cl.

Year

2023

Description

Cobrana comes from a different village than Valtuille. It consists of several parcels around the village of Cobrana at 700 metres altitude. Here the soils are not sandy but composed of blue slate with clay. Verónica mainly works with field blends, very traditional for the region, with about 25% white grapes co-fermented with the reds. This co-fermentation results in a “Blouge” profile, a contraction of blanc and rouge, creating a wine that sits between white and red. This gives the wines from Cobrana a more Burgundian character, whereas those from Valtuille show a more Rhône-like profile.

75 cl.

94 Guía Peñin

Biological

Quite 2024

Castilla y León

Verónica Ortega

D.O. Bierzo

75 cl.

red

19,60 € /pc

16,20 € excl. VAT

Assembly

Mencia (100%)

Content

75 cl.

Year

2024

Description

The name Quite (little hand, in the parlance of the bull-fighters) brings us back to the Andalusian roots of Veronica, whose father was a torero. This is Veronica's most approachable Mencia, juicy and fruity, but still very personal.

75 cl.

94 Guía Peñin

Biological

Quite Promopack 5+1 2024

Castilla y León

Verónica Ortega

D.O. Bierzo

75 cl.

red

98,01 € /pc

81,00 € excl. VAT

Free delivery within Belgium

Assembly

Mencia (100%)

Content

75 cl.

Year

2024

Description

Promo-pack 6 bottles: 5+1 free. The name Quite (little hand, in the parlance of the bull-fighters) brings us back to the Andalusian roots of Veronica, whose father was a torero. This is Veronica's most approachable Mencia, juicy and fruity, but still very personal.

75 cl.

96 R. Parker

Biodynamic

ROC 2023

Castilla y León

Verónica Ortega

D.O. Bierzo

75 cl.

red

44,10 € /pc

36,45 € excl. VAT

Assembly

Mencia (85%), Doña Blanca (8%), Palomino (7%)

Content

75 cl.

Year

2023

Description

“ROC” was the first wine Verónica made in this region in 2010. It is a tribute to her brother Roberto, who passed away at a young age. It comes from two parcels (El Couso and La Rata) located in Valtuille de Abajo, on poor sandy soils with quartz debris. The vines are 80 years old. This blend made from the best terroirs of Valtuille can bear the "vino de Pueblo" mention. This was has not a big extract, but it is typical of the Mencía grape.