Spain · Jerez (Sherry)

Cortijo Los Aguilares

Organic mountain estate in the Serranía de Ronda farming Pinot Noir, Petit Verdot and Tempranillo at high altitude in Andalusia, with international recognition for its Pinot Noir and a Petit Verdot-led flagship aged in French oak.

The producer

Cortijo Los Aguilares farms certified organic bush vines at high altitude in the Serranía de Ronda, the mountain range behind the cliff-top city of Ronda in Andalusia. José Antonio Itarte established the estate in 1999, planting on clay and limestone terrain in a zone where commercial winemaking had been largely absent since phylloxera destroyed the region's vineyards in the late nineteenth century. Bibi García leads the technical work. The estate grows six varieties: Pinot Noir, Petit Verdot, Tempranillo, Grenache, Syrah, and Cabernet Sauvignon, all certified organic, all from its own 30 hectares.

The altitude is high, and the conditions are demanding. Cool nights slow ripening and hold acidity through the growing season. UV radiation runs very high on the mountain, and Pinot Noir, the grape with the thinnest skin in the cellar, risks scorching before it can ripen. The estate grows it anyway and won Great Gold at the Mondial du Pinot Noir in Sierre, Switzerland in 2008. Two bottles define the current range: Pago El Espino, a Petit Verdot-led blend aged 15 months in French oak, and Tinto CLA, a Tempranillo-led red stabilised in concrete with no oak at all.

Known for

Organic bush-vine viticulture at altitude in the Serranía de Ronda; Pinot Noir in southern Spain; Petit Verdot as primary lead variety in Pago El Espino.

Notable facts

The story

The Thin-Skinned Grape at the Top of Andalusia

At the Mondial du Pinot Noir competition in Sierre, Switzerland in 2008, the judges awarded Great Gold to a wine from Andalusia. The producer was Cortijo Los Aguilares, an estate in the Serranía de Ronda that had been growing Pinot Noir in the mountains above Ronda since 1999. A Gold Medal followed two years later. The Grandes Pagos de España noted the result as highly unusual for a Spanish wine of this variety, and the understatement was fair: Pinot Noir is grown in Burgundy, in Oregon, in cool pockets of New Zealand, in places where thin-skinned grapes do not scorch in the sun. Technical director Bibi García has said plainly that UV radiation at the estate's altitude runs very high, and that Pinot Noir's delicate skin risks scorching before it ripens. The vine requires care the mountain does not naturally offer. The wine won in Switzerland anyway.

From the atlas

Cortijo Los Aguilares

At A Glance

Estate: Cortijo Los Aguilares Founded: 1999 Location: Serranía de Ronda, Andalusia, Spain Founder: José Antonio Itarte Technical Director: Bibi García Viticulture: Certified organic Vineyards: Approximately 30 hectares Grapes: Pinot Noir, Petit Verdot, Tempranillo, Grenache, Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon Production: Approximately 120,000 bottles in favourable vintages Classification: Grandes Pagos de España Key Bottles: Pago El Espino, Tinto CLA

The Producer

Cortijo Los Aguilares is a certified organic estate in the Serranía de Ronda, the mountain range that rises behind the ancient cliff-top city of Ronda in Andalusia. José Antonio Itarte established it in 1999, planting bush vines on clay and limestone at high altitude in a zone where commercial winemaking had been largely absent for over a century. Bibi García leads the technical work.

The estate farms six grape varieties, an unusually international selection for southern Spain: Pinot Noir, Petit Verdot, Tempranillo, Grenache, Syrah, and Cabernet Sauvignon. The Pinot Noir attracted the sharpest outside attention, winning Great Gold at the Mondial du Pinot Noir in Sierre, Switzerland in 2008 and Gold in 2010, results that the Grandes Pagos de España, the quality association the estate belongs to, described as highly unusual for a Spanish wine of that variety. The flagship red is Pago El Espino, a Petit Verdot-led blend aged in French oak. Tinto CLA is the unoaked counterpart, built around Tempranillo and stabilised in concrete.

Place

The Serranía de Ronda sits in the western corner of Andalusia, far from the sherry country of Jerez and the coastal warmth of Málaga. Altitude is the defining condition: the mountain vineyards sit high enough that summer heat is moderated by cool nights, and the marked diurnal temperature difference slows ripening and preserves acidity in a region where low-elevation fruit would otherwise cook through. Winter rainfall is generous. The estate sits within reach of both the Mediterranean to the east and the Atlantic to the west, a geographical double influence that shapes the growing season without belonging squarely to either maritime zone.

That altitude carries a consequence beyond freshness. UV radiation intensifies at elevation, and the grape most sensitive to it, Pinot Noir, risks scorching before it can ripen. The decision to grow it here was not cautious. That it produced award-winning wine is what turned the estate's location from a curiosity into a statement.

Soil And Site

The 30 hectares are planted as bush vines at low density across soils of clay and limestone. Bush vine training, rather than trellis systems, forces the vine to direct energy downward into root development rather than outward into leaf canopy, producing lower yields with more concentrated fruit. Clay retains moisture and moderates temperature at root level; limestone contributes drainage and the mineral uptake associated with acidity and keeping quality in the finished wine. The packet does not specify individual parcel profiles beyond this overall composition.

Story

Winemaking in the Serranía de Ronda is older than Roman settlement in the peninsula, tracing back nearly three thousand years to Phoenician traders who introduced the vine to this part of southern Spain. Phylloxera, the root louse that swept through European vineyards in the late nineteenth century, destroyed most of what had been built. The mountain zone spent much of the twentieth century without a functioning wine culture.

The revival began in the late 1980s and accelerated through the 1990s. Itarte arrived in 1999 and planted on terrain that would have seemed impractical to most producers: high altitude, remote, UV-intense, and without the commercial infrastructure of established Spanish appellations. The organic certification followed, as did membership of Grandes Pagos de España, the grouping of estates that operate outside the mainstream denominación system while maintaining higher self-imposed quality standards. The Pinot Noir medals at the Mondial du Pinot Noir confirmed that the bet on altitude was producing wine that could compete internationally, not merely locally.

Vineyards And Cellar

All fruit comes from the estate's own certified organic bush vines. No synthetic herbicides, pesticides, or fertilisers are used across the 30 hectares. Bush vine training at low planting density limits yields and concentrates flavour in each berry.

The two wines in the current range follow entirely different cellar routes. Pago El Espino spends 15 months in French oak barrels after fermentation, a period long enough to soften Petit Verdot's naturally firm tannin, integrate colour, and build the toasted and spiced register that oak élevage of that duration produces. Tinto CLA bypasses oak entirely: after fermentation it goes into concrete tanks for a four-month stabilisation. Concrete neither adds flavour nor strips it; it allows slow, stable oxygen exchange without the vanilla, cedar, or toast that wood contributes. Tinto CLA stays close to fresh red fruit and wild fennel.

Wines

Pago El Espino is the estate's principal statement. The 2024 vintage blends 72% Petit Verdot with 16% Syrah and 12% Tempranillo, an unusual composition for Spain. Petit Verdot is almost always a minority component in Bordeaux-influenced blends, used for colour and grip but rarely given lead position. At nearly three-quarters of the blend, it drives the wine's dark fruit concentration, firm tannic frame, and depth of colour. Syrah adds a darker, slightly peppery register; Tempranillo softens the mid-palate. Fifteen months in French oak barrels builds the toasted and balsamic layer that sits over the ripe fruit on the nose, and carries into a long, smooth finish.

Tinto CLA is built around 73% Tempranillo, with 17% Grenache and 10% Syrah. It receives no oak of any kind. Four months in concrete tanks stabilises the wine without adding flavour, leaving the nose open: subtle red fruit, balsamic lift, and a distinctive thread of wild fennel that the high-altitude growing conditions bring out in Tempranillo and Grenache at this elevation. The palate is silky and fresh, with a lighter body than Pago El Espino and less tannic grip.

The estate's Pinot Noir, which earned the international medal recognition, is not detailed in the current range beyond its award record. Six organic varieties are under cultivation, suggesting a broader range than these two bottles alone.

In The Glass

Tinto CLA opens with a quiet nose: cherry and dried strawberry, a faint balsamic undertone, and that thread of wild fennel that pulls the mountain origin into the aromatic profile. In the mouth it is light-bodied and fluid, with fresh acidity from the altitude-driven slow ripening, silky tannin, and a clean finish that carries no oak weight. It is a red wine that behaves more like a cool-climate wine than an Andalusian one.

Pago El Espino is a different register entirely. The nose carries dark plum, blackcurrant, and a balsamic seam under toasted and spiced notes from the 15 months in French oak. On the palate Petit Verdot's natural grip is present but softened by the élevage; the wine is smooth and fresh despite its density, and the finish is long. The oak is absorbed rather than dominant, working with the dark fruit rather than over it. The body is fuller than Tinto CLA, the tannin firmer, and the aftertaste more sustained.

A Bottle To Understand It

Pago El Espino is the bottle that shows what the estate is doing at altitude with French oak and an unusual lead grape. Petit Verdot at 72% of the blend is a commitment: this is not a Bordeaux grape used for colour adjustment but the primary structural and flavour driver. The 15 months in French oak add a toasted and balsamic layer that lifts the ripe dark fruit without masking the mountain freshness underneath. The palate is smooth, the tannin firm and rounded, and the finish long. Grown on organic clay and limestone bush vines in the Serranía de Ronda, aged in French barrels, and built around a grape that most Spanish producers treat as a footnote, this bottle makes the estate's intentions legible in a single pour.

Anecdote

At the Mondial du Pinot Noir competition in Sierre, Switzerland in 2008, the judges awarded Great Gold to a wine from Andalusia. The producer was Cortijo Los Aguilares, an estate in the Serranía de Ronda that had been growing Pinot Noir in the mountains above Ronda since 1999. A Gold Medal followed two years later. The Grandes Pagos de España noted the result as highly unusual for a Spanish wine of this variety, and the understatement was fair: Pinot Noir is grown in Burgundy, in Oregon, in cool pockets of New Zealand, in places where thin-skinned grapes do not scorch in the sun. Bibi García, the estate's technical director, has said plainly that UV radiation at the estate's altitude runs very high, and that Pinot Noir's delicate skin risks scorching before it ripens. The vine requires care the mountain does not naturally offer. The wine won in Switzerland anyway.

Final Word

Cortijo Los Aguilares is a mountain estate built on a bet. The Serranía de Ronda had no living wine culture when Itarte arrived in 1999; the phylloxera catastrophe of the previous century had seen to that. He planted organic bush vines at altitude on clay and limestone and grew grapes, including Pinot Noir, that most of Andalusia would not attempt. The Mondial du Pinot Noir medals put the estate on a map that few Spanish producers have reached for that variety. Pago El Espino, the Petit Verdot-led flagship, represents the fuller, oak-aged face of what the altitude and the soil can produce when pushed toward weight and depth. Tinto CLA shows the same terroir at its freshest, unoaked and concrete-stabilised, carrying fennel and red fruit from the mountain air. Both bottles come from the same 30 organic hectares, and both make the location feel deliberate rather than accidental.

Sources

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