Maestro Alfredo Tempranillo 'Almate' 2021
The vibe: Spanish red wine! It seems almost every Spanish red wine we’ve been trying has been well suited to this time of the year. These wines are warming and spicy, and with no shortage of coastline and rugged mountains, it’s not too hard to find examples that also retain freshness and tension. It’s this balance that drew us to Alfredo Maestro’s ‘Almate,’ the first wine that he ever made (named after himself: Al-Ma-Te) in Duero. This wine is sourced from several plots of Tinto Fino aka Tempranillo, located at elevations ranging from 700 to 1,000 meters (high elevation = fresh wine!). This is a super clean, classic Spanish red, especially impressive when you consider that Alfredo doesn’t add a drop of sulfites. We’ll salud to that!
The winemaker: Alfredo’s ascendance is unique to Alfredo. His family came to the winemaking town Peñafiel, Ribera del Duero from the Basque Country. Having grown up amongst the vines, Alfredo had a great interest in wine, and, through encouragement from friends, he started making his own wine in 1998. That same year he planted his first vineyard on the Rio Duraton near his home. From the beginning he farmed organically. In the cellar, Alfredo was working literally “by-the-book”, teaching himself enology from a book and using every trick in it to make a “correct” Ribera del Duero wine: yeasts, acid, enzymes, tannins, color-enhancers, etc. were just some of the techniques utilized. In search of serious “purple-ness”, this is how many of the modern Ribera del Duero’s of today are produced. In the early 2000’s Alfredo had a revelation. He questioned why as an organic farmer use chemicals to make the finished wine; he wanted to work as naturally in the winery as he did in the vineyard, in his words - "to better tell the story of the land." Alfredo began eliminating exogenous products, and in 2003 he began making wine without any additives whatsoever, including sulfur.
The geeky details: This cuvée is made from fruit sourced from various plots of Tinto Fino (Tempranillo), of varying vine ages located, in Valtiendas at 1,000 meters elevation, as well as Peñafiel, at 700 meters. The wine is fermented in steel vat with 15-20 days of maceration and 50-100% stem inclusion depending on vintage, and raised over winter with one racking: unfined, unfiltered, and no added SO2.
Serve: Cellar temp.
Food pairing: Manchego cheese! Spicy Spanish charcuterie meats! This is a somewhat powerful wine (in profile, not in punch), and will stand up to rich and savory dishes with smoke or char.
Album pairing: Jackson Mathod - Come on Now EP