Raúl Pérez

Ultreia is the greeting pilgrims exchange on the Camino de Santiago: «let us go further». The full phrase is «ultreia et suseia», further and higher, and it comes from the Codex Calixtinus, from the «Dum pater familias» known as the song of the Flemish pilgrims. The vineyard is in Valtuille de Abajo, in Bierzo, a step away from the Camino itself.

Raúl Pérez was born in 1973 into a family that has farmed vines in Valtuille de Abajo since the eighteenth century. He started working at the family winery, Castro Ventosa, as its oenologist, and in 2003 he set out on his own in Bierzo. In 2010 he regained control of the family house and in 2011 he set up La Vizcaína with his nephew César Márquez.

La Claudina comes from a 0.3-hectare plot planted as bush vines at 590 metres, facing east, on sandy soil. It is 100% godello and picked by hand.

It ferments in a 1,500-litre foudre that is never topped up, so the wine develops a flor veil — the mechanics of fortified wines, applied here to a still white — and ages twelve to twenty-four months in that same foudre.