Guzqía Viñas Desaparecidas 1998 | Airén | Toledo

The Recuero family has been making wine in Villanueva de Alcardete (Toledo) since 1873. Jesús Recuero Martínez, a fifth-generation oenologist, trained at wineries in Yecla and Castilla-La Mancha before returning to revive the family project on his own terms. His grandfather Francisco built the current cellar around 1954 — a classic Manchegan architecture of underground concrete tanks — and those same vessels are what Jesús still uses today. Guzquía is the historical name of the territory: a belt of calcareous sandy soils between Toledo and Cuenca, with centuries of Mozarabic viticulture, that gives the winery its entire geographic identity.

The 17 hectares in the Antiguos Territorios de Guzquía grow at 840 metres on sand, clay and rounded limestone pebbles. The heart of the project is its collection of indigenous bush-vine varieties, dry-farmed and nearly forgotten on the Castilian plateau: Moravia (Brujidera), Tinto Velasco, centenarian Tinta Madrid, centenarian Airén, Malvar, Pardillo, Verdoncho and Gordal. A second vineyard of 10 hectares in the Sierra de Gata (Cáceres) extends the project with mountain varieties unique to that area: Pinuelo, Rufete and Verdejo Serrano.

Fermentation takes place in the 1954 underground concrete tanks, with no corrections and minimal intervention. The Calambur range covers natural wines with no added sulphites; the Sigilo range, traditional-method sparkling wines with a minimum of 36 months on the lees. Guzquía Viñas Desaparecidas 1998 is an object of absolute rarity: a 1998 Airén from vineyards that no longer exist, kept in the cellar tanks for decades. Sigilo Moravia Vendimia Tardía is a late-harvest wine from the Moravia variety — a grape that has nearly vanished from the viticultural map of La Mancha — bottled in 50 cl format. Recuero's wines appear on the list of Bagà (Michelin star, Jaén) and are distributed in the United States through DesPaña (New York).