Description
Bodegas Vatan is a part of the Grupo Jorge Ordóñez. Founded in 2004, Grupo Jorge Ordóñez is a select group of eight wineries that produce wines from grapes grown in thirteen different denominations of origin across Spain. All of the wineries are owned and operated by Jorge Ordóñez. Nacho Álvarez is the Technical Director and Head Winemaker for the Grupo. The philosophy of this project is the production of artisan wines from the oldest vineyards of Spain’s indigenous grapes. Vatan’s wines are the ultimate representation of fine wine from the oldest clones of indigenous Spanish grape varieties from the Castilla y León region.
The Rueda DO is located in the Duero river valley, on the Spanish central plateau, so although this area is flat, it is planted at 850M above sea level. Nisia is produced from several vineyard sites surrounding the town of Puras in the south-eastern sub-region of Rueda. These vineyard sites were planted between 60–80 years ago, on extremely sandy soils that are intermixed with river stones that were deposited thousands of years ago by the Duero River. These sandy soils prevented the phylloxera from entering this subzone, so although the vineyards were planted between 1940–1960, they are all ungrafted, head-trained, dry-farmed, and cared for using traditional, organic viticulture methods.
Nisia’s Old Vines Verdejo comes from a collection of vineyard sites including plots in Codorniz planted between 1900–1941, Santiuste de San Juan Bautista planted between 1918–1956, Aldeanueva del Codonal planted from 1930 to 1956, and in Rueda planted in 1988. The grapes are rigorously sorted and destemmed prior to being pressed in a pneumatic press. The must was clarified by cold settling in a stainless-steel tank, between 24–48 hours with temperatures around 42-50 °F; the juice was transferred to 500L and 600L puncheons and demi-muids (purchased between 2016 and 2020) and fermented for 6–10 days, and aged on the lees with bâttonage for at least 5 months.
Inviting scents of citrus and white peach. The palate is fresh and nicely focused with flavors of peach, green apple and key lime. The nicely balanced acidity makes for a refreshing, light-bodied wine, with the slightest hint of oak rounding out the mouthwatering finish.
