Castro Ventosa

The family keeps a document from 1752 in which an ancestor left written instructions that anyone who came to sit with him at his wake would be given a glass of wine and a piece of the bread they made at home. That is the date from which they can be traced as growers in Valtuille de Abajo, and the proof is a will that talks about the house's wine.

The winery was not always called this: it was Herederos de Rosaura López Fuente, and it was the grandchildren who gave it the name of the pre-Roman archaeological site next door, the Castro de la Ventosa, on whose western slope the house sits.

There are 85 hectares around Valtuille de Abajo, which is the centre of Bierzo viticulture: both for the concentration of vines and because a good share of the district's wineries buy their grapes here. The property belongs to three siblings and a cousin — Arturo, María Isabel, Raúl and José Daniel — the day-to-day is run by their nephew César Márquez, and Raúl Pérez remains attached to the house as oenologist.

El Val comes from a single plot with twenty-year-old vines, facing west, on clay soils with rolled pebbles. It is 100% godello.

After destemming the fruit drops by gravity into stainless steel tanks and spends twenty-four hours cold. After pressing, the must sits another twenty-four hours settling on its own, and from there it is racked into 500-litre French oak barrels, where it ferments. It ages twelve months in French oak, 80% new.