Aseginolaza & Leunda

They did not buy the first vineyard to start anything: it is in San Martín de Unx, surrounded by woodland, and it was the place they went to switch off. The project itself did not begin until 2017.

Jon Aseginolaza and Pedro Leunda are school friends, both born in 1979 in the Basque Country and both environmental biologists, now based in Navarra.

What occupies them is the old bush-vine garnacha of Navarra, much of it abandoned: they bring it back unirrigated and feed it only with compost. Most of the fruit comes from rented plots in Dicastillo and nearby villages such as Allo and Arellano.

The plots are spread across three subregions: Tierra Estella, the Baja Montaña of San Martín de Unx and the Ribera Alta of Olite. Besides garnacha they work viura, tempranillo and mazuelo.

Cuvée Las Santas comes from three micro-plots — Otsaka at 0.2 hectares, Valdillerzo at 0.25 and Karatea at 0.22 — of old, unirrigated bush vines between 445 and 650 metres, on clay-limestone soil. Half the fruit is destemmed over a base of whole clusters, it ferments in stainless steel with indigenous yeasts and hand punch-downs, is pressed by hand and ages nine months in old French oak barrels. Neither filtered nor fined: 1,423 bottles.