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Bodegas Alejandro Fernández Tinto Pesquera
Pesquera de Duero (Valladolid)
Denominación de Origen: Ribera del Duero
Alejandro Fernández personifies the mercurial 20th-century Spanish
experience. A family breadwinner from the age of thirteen, he went on to learn
several trades, beginning as a master carpenter. After military service he
worked selling agricultural machinery but soon came to manufacture
equipment of his own design, attaining national success with a revolutionary
beet harvester. During all these years Alejandro harvested and made wine
yearly from his own vineyards, nurturing a lifelong dream of establishing a
bodega for the production of great red wines, following the traditions of his
ancestors dating to Roman and Visigothic times.
In 1972, Alejandro and wife Esperanza licensed their bodega in Pesquera, the
16th-century lagar and press house serving as grape receiving and processing
through the 1982 harvest. (His machine shop which ceased business in 1985
still serves as the source for stainless tanks and countless other items for
vineyard and bodega.) Since 1982, fermentation has been of de-stemmed
whole berries only, maceration varying from 12 to 20 days. The unclarified
wine goes directly to small oak after pressing. Barricas are an astute blend of
American, Spanish and French oak, custom-cured and made by Spain’s finest
coopers. Innovations such as overhead lifts and Alejandro’s patented barrel
steamer facilitate the frequent racking process. Clarification is natural in the
cold Castilian winters, assisted only occasionally with egg white fining prior to
bottling. Neither filtration nor cold stabilization is practiced.
At a time when the region was pulling out vineyards in favor of irrigated row
crops such as beets, Alejandro was augmenting and developing vineyards, his
Viña Alta in 1972 the area’s first to be wire-trained. A current total of over 500
acres of mature vineyard occupies a judiciously varied range of terroirs from
gravel benchland to high mountain plateau
(Llano Santiago, planted in 1993, lies at over
3200 feet overlooking the Duero Valley).
Wines produced by Alejandro Fernández are
made exclusively fromthe difficult, quickmaturing Tempranillo variety, of which he is
the acknowledged master. His world-famous
Tinto Pesquera is aged a minimum of 18 months in oak, with selected
Reservas and Grandes Reservas remaining in barrel for 24 months and longer.
Classical Wines From Spain, Ltd.
9075 Holman Road — Seattle, WA 98117
(206) 297-6713 — (206) 297-6719 F — www.classicalwines.com