A Magician in the Duero: Alfredo Maestro Tejero
10/19/11 -
(Alfredo working the vines with Penafiel castle looming)
We recently tasted wines from a newly discovered vigneron working naturally in the Duero. Our friend, importer Jose Pastor shared some information about this grower that was intriguing to say the least. Alfredo Maestro Tejero, a son of the Duero, works 5 acres organically and – astonishingly for the Duero - he does not use sulfur in the wine-making process; this is just his second vintage. Organic viticulture is great, but when I hear of another newbie producer who shuns sulfur, my first reaction is a skeptical one. The thought process goes: if you are not using sulfur, you have to really know what you are doing, especially in the vineyard. It takes many years of rigorous organic viticulture and extreme cleanliness in the winery. The know-how (see Ganevat, Texier, Ducroux, etc.) can produce happy results, but they are not always guaranteed, especially with less experienced vignerons.
To my surprise, I opened bottle after bottle of Tejero's wines and found the contents to be beautifully pure. These are wines with a sense of place, with energy, beautiful focus on the fruit, and the signature limestone minerality of the Duero. These wines sang simply and almost antagonistically in the face of the other wineries in the Ribera del Duero: "I know what I am, but what are you?" I felt invigorated. Alfredo's wines transported me back to my only trip to the Duero, like a scene out of Victor Erice's "Spirit of the Beehive"; visions of a grand sky with gentle slopes awash with swaths of red poppy flowers, cereal grains, scrub brush, and hierbas (herbs). These wines seem very honest and spoke of this countryside like none other that I have experienced. Although the flavors and sensations exist in my daydreams, the prices are firmly down to earth. What a relief!
More about Alfredo Maestro: he started working with wine in the early 1990's. Having grown up amongst the vines, he began his wine education reading oenology textbooks and purchasing fruit to make wine for personal consumption. With some encouragement, he purchased a plot on the Duraton River and planted Tempranillo vines there. He has farmed that same plot organically ever since, which forms the base for the wine Almate, his entry-level cuvèe. In the early days, in his words, he made "mistakes" working with the laboratory of wine-tricks he had learned from his oenology book: sulfur, acids, enzymes, color extractors, color fasteners, stabilizers, etc. He gradually became disenchanted with the more-is-better philosophy of wine-making. He wanted to work in the winery the way he did in the vineyard, where he had always had a passion for organic viticulture. In his words - "to better tell the story of the land." Currently, he has eliminated all exogenous products including sulfur; he works only with grapes, well-maintained vines, and healthy soil. All of the wines being offered are from single vineyards. The vineyards are within the Ribera del Duero D.O., but Alfredo chooses to declassify, working under the Tierra de Leon label. All of the grapes are estate grown. After de-stemming, the wines are fermented in stainless-steel tanks without temperature control. The wines are racked and aged in un-toasted French oak barrels. The future is bright for Alfredo, who is currently in the process of purchasing and reviving several old vine plots. Roughly translated from Spanish, his goal is to make "easy wines with character imprinted with the earth and the vintage, authentic stories transmitted differently each year and not modified by the hand of the man in the cellar."
P.S. A la Texier, Lapierre, Foillard, etc. there is a touch of sulfur added at bottling for the red wines heading to the United States. Sulfur levels are 20 m.g. total. There is no sulfur added to the white wine.
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CAVEAT: The inventory listed is all of the wines that are available, so the quantities are extremely limited; let us know what you'd like and we'll do our best to fill your request.
