Verdejo
⏳ Drinking Window
2023 - 2025
🍽️ Food & Wine Pairings
Fresh seafood and shellfish, grilled white fish, and goat cheese salads or traditional Spanish tapas.
✨ Technical Specifications
In the early 1970s, the historic Rioja producer Marqués de Riscal ventured into the high-altitude, gravelly plains of Rueda in Castilla y León, seeking to craft a world-class white wine. Guided by the legendary French oenologist Émile Peynaud, they championed the native Verdejo grape, which had previously been relegated to heavy, oxidized styles. By introducing temperature-controlled stainless steel fermentation, Marqués de Riscal revolutionized the region, effectively birthing the modern, vibrant Rueda DO. Grown on stony, clay-limestone soils under a continental climate with dramatic diurnal temperature shifts, this wine captures the essence of the grape: brilliant straw-yellow, highly aromatic, with notes of fresh-cut grass, citrus, and white peach, backed by a signature mineral and slightly bitter fennel finish.
🍾 About the Producer
Founded in 1858 by Camilo Hurtado de Amézaga, Marqués de Riscal is one of the oldest and most pioneering wineries in Spain's Rioja region, situated in the historic town of Elciego. The estate revolutionized Spanish viticulture by introducing Bordeaux-style vinification and barrel aging techniques, earning worldwide acclaim as the first non-French wine to win the Diploma of Honor at the Exhibition of Bordeaux in 1895. In addition to its legendary, structured Rioja Reserva and Gran Reserva Tempranillo expressions, the bodega expanded into Castilla y León in the 1970s, playing an instrumental role in establishing the Rueda appellation with benchmark Verdejo and Sauvignon Blanc wines. Today, Marqués de Riscal seamlessly fuses classical winemaking mastery with avant-garde innovation, epitomized by its iconic Frank Gehry-designed winery complex.
🍇 Grape Varieties
Verdejo (min 85%), Sauvignon Blanc