From the atlas
Bodegas Hnos Pérez Pascuas
At A Glance
Producer: Bodegas Hermanos Pérez Pascuas Location: Pedrosa de Duero, Ribera del Duero DO, Castilla y León, Spain Grape: Tinta del País (Tempranillo), with a minority of Cabernet Sauvignon Elevation: 840 to 870 metres Founded: 1980 Flagship: Viña Pedrosa Crianza Production: over 500,000 bottles annually
The Producer
Bodegas Hermanos Pérez Pascuas occupies a specific position in Spanish wine: a family estate that opened its doors before the appellation it now belongs to had a name. The three brothers, Benjamín, Manuel, and Adolfo, founded the winery in Pedrosa de Duero in 1980, farming land their father Mauro Pérez had cultivated before them. The village gave the winery its main label. When producers in the region petitioned Madrid two years later to establish the Ribera del Duero Denominación de Origen, the Pérez Pascuas brothers were among the founding signatories.
Today the estate farms approximately 135 hectares, produces over 500,000 bottles a year, and exports to more than 35 countries. The core commercial wine, the Viña Pedrosa Crianza, accounts for roughly 45 percent of total production. Above it sits a range that moves from single-parcel bottlings through reserves to a limited Gran Selección drawn from the oldest vines. Tinta del País, the local name for Tempranillo, runs through all of it.
Place
Pedrosa de Duero sits on the southern edge of the Ribera del Duero DO, about 180 kilometres north of Madrid in the high Castilian plateau. Elevation here runs from 840 to 870 metres above sea level. The continental climate delivers hot summers, cold winters, and sharp diurnal swings: the temperature can drop 15 degrees between midday and midnight in August. That daily shift slows ripening and pulls more acidity into the grapes than lower-altitude Tempranillo sites tend to achieve.
Rainfall is scarce. Clay soils retain what moisture falls and release it slowly through dry summers, encouraging roots to push deep rather than spread laterally. The Viña Pedrosa label carries the village name as its appellation address, and everything from the entry Crianza to the Gran Selección is grown within that same elevated band.
Soil And Site
The vineyards around Pedrosa de Duero are planted on clay with good water retention. Vine age across the estate ranges from 20 to 80 years, with the oldest parcels reserved for upper-tier bottlings. The El Otero parcel sits at 870 metres, the highest point in the estate, and produces one of the single-vineyard wines in the range. Clay slows ripening relative to sandy or stony soils and contributes to the dark colour and firm extraction that characterise Ribera del Duero Tinta del País. Ninety percent of plantings are Tinta del País; the remaining ten percent is Cabernet Sauvignon, used as a blending minority in some upper-tier wines.
The estate also plants native woodland across more than 20 hectares integrated with the farming land, which functions as a carbon sink and a biodiversity corridor running alongside the vines.
Story
When Benjamín, Manuel, and Adolfo Pérez Pascuas opened the winery in 1980, they were farming Tinta del País at altitude with no appellation to put on a label, no recognised collective framework for the valley, and no regulated market for quality wine from the region. Ribera del Duero existed as a geography, not as a legal wine address. The brothers farmed and vinified on the terms available to them.
Two years later, a small group of local producers petitioned for Denominación de Origen status. The Pérez Pascuas brothers joined that founding group, and when the DO was formally constituted in 1982, the winery was part of it from the first day. The appellation framework they helped create is now the framework the Viña Pedrosa label operates within.
The winery has since scaled from a family farm into an international exporter without abandoning the family ownership or the Pedrosa de Duero address. A more recent chapter concerns the land itself: the estate became the first winery in the Ribera del Duero DO to register with Spain's Carbon Footprint, Offsetting, and CO2 Absorption Projects Registry. Regenerative sheep grazing was integrated across the vineyard, with flocks moving between vine rows to graze cover crops and return organic matter to the clay soils.
Vineyards And Cellar
Vines at Pedrosa de Duero grow at elevations that compress the growing season. The diurnal swing at 840 to 870 metres preserves fruit acidity and delays full phenolic ripeness, which lengthens the period between colour development and harvest. Tinta del País from old vines, particularly those above 50 years, produces smaller berries with higher skin-to-juice ratios, contributing to the deep colour and firm tannin that characterises the upper-tier wines.
In the cellar, ageing combines American and French oak barrels. The Viña Pedrosa Crianza spends 18 months in this mixed-barrel regime. American oak tends to contribute vanilla and coconut character alongside broader tannin grain; French oak leans toward cedar, dried herb, and finer-grained tannin. The 18-month period in a combination of both shapes the Crianza into a wine with detectable oak influence and enough fruit concentration from the altitude to carry it. Upper-tier wines receive longer ageing in both barrel and bottle before release.
Wines
The Pérez Pascuas range runs across five tiers, each tied to a different level of vine age, parcel selection, and oak contact.
Cepa Gavilán Crianza is the entry point, lighter in extraction and shorter in oak than the wines above it, intended as an introduction to Tinta del País at Pedrosa de Duero.
Viña Pedrosa Crianza is the commercial core. One hundred percent Tinta del País, aged 18 months in American and French oak, it shows an intense cherry red colour with purple rims, dried cherry and plum fruit, vanilla from the American barrels, and firm tannin that softens with a year or two in bottle after release.
Viña Pedrosa El Otero is a single-parcel wine from the highest vineyard block at 870 metres. The extra elevation concentrates acidity and refines the fruit profile relative to the estate blend.
Viña Pedrosa Reserva and Finca La Navilla Reserva occupy the mid-premium tier, with longer oak and bottle ageing delivering more complexity and a longer finish than the Crianza. Finca La Navilla draws from a named estate parcel and carries its own distinct vineyard character.
Viña Pedrosa Gran Reserva and Pérez Pascuas Gran Reserva Gran Selección sit at the top. The Gran Selección is a limited bottling from the oldest vines and finest parcels, with extended barrel and bottle ageing before release. At this tier, Cabernet Sauvignon may appear as a blending component alongside Tinta del País.
In The Glass
Viña Pedrosa Crianza pours intense cherry red with a purple-rimmed edge. The nose opens on dark cherry, dried plum, and a layer of vanilla and light cedar from the oak regime. In the mouth, the wine has medium-full body with evident tannin from the Tinta del País grape and the 18-month barrel contact. Acidity is firm rather than piercing at this elevation, and the finish carries some dryness from the oak alongside the fruit. It drinks well at release with decanting, or opens further with two to three years in bottle.
The Reserva tier shows more integration between oak and fruit, with a longer finish and dried herb and tobacco notes that come with additional ageing. The Gran Selección, from the oldest vines, delivers a more concentrated mid-palate, tighter tannin, and a finish that extends past a minute, with the complexity that comes from deep roots in old clay and extended time in barrel.
A Bottle To Understand It
Viña Pedrosa Crianza is the bottle to start with. It is 100 percent Tinta del País from vineyards around Pedrosa de Duero, aged 18 months in American and French oak, and it delivers the house signature in the most accessible form: dark cherry fruit, vanilla and light cedar from the barrels, medium-full body, and enough tannin to show what the grape and the clay do at 840 metres. The colour alone, intense cherry red with a purple rim, signals the extraction level that defines Ribera del Duero at this tier. Decant for 30 minutes before serving, or hold it two or three years for the oak to knit further into the fruit.
Anecdote
In 1980, Benjamín, Manuel, and Adolfo Pérez Pascuas signed the founding papers for their winery in Pedrosa de Duero. There was no Ribera del Duero DO, no appellation to print on a label, and no government framework to certify what they were making. They farmed Tinta del País on their father's land and made wine under their family name. Two years later, a small group of producers in the valley decided to change this. They drafted a petition, assembled the legal requirements, and submitted an application to create a Denominación de Origen for the region. The Pérez Pascuas brothers were in that group. When the DO was formally constituted in 1982, the winery had already existed for two full harvests. The brothers had not waited for the appellation to tell them where they were.
Final Word
Bodegas Hermanos Pérez Pascuas is one of the estates that built the Ribera del Duero DO from inside its founding moment. The winery still operates from the village that names its wines, farms the clay soils at altitude that define the fruit character of Tinta del País in this part of Castilla y León, and runs a range from accessible Crianza to limited Gran Selección across a consistent house style. The Viña Pedrosa Crianza is the clearest point of entry: a Ribera del Duero with genuine depth at a price that does not require a commitment to the top tier.
Sources
- https://perezpascuas.com/en/
- https://spanishwinelover.com/winerie/hnos-perez-pascuas
- https://www.sobrelias.com/en/wines-wineries/bodegas-hnos-perez-pascuas-vina-pedrosa-when-the-flock-tends-the-vine-grazing-and-tradition-in-service-of-the-terroir/
- https://www.enterwine.com/en/world-of-wine/wineries/bodegas-hnos-perez-pascuas
- https://perezpascuas.com/en/vina-pedrosa-crianza-en/