At A Glance
- **Appellation:** Ribera del Duero, Castilla y León, Spain
- **Village:** Sotillo de la Ribera
- **Grape:** Tempranillo
- **Founded:** 1989
- **Estate:** 58 hectares across 27 parcels
- **First bottle:** Flores de Callejo
The Producer
Bodegas Felix Callejo farms 58 hectares across 27 separate parcels in Sotillo de la Ribera, a village inside the Ribera del Duero appellation on the high plateau of Castilla y León. Félix Callejo founded the estate in 1989. His four children now run it: José Félix and Noelia as the enologists, Cristina as export manager, Beatriz in sales.
Before taking over the family operation, José Félix and Noelia spent years training at named estates abroad: José Félix at Petrus in Bordeaux and Torres in Chile, Noelia at Araujo in California and Cobos in Argentina. They returned to a 58-hectare plateau estate where every parcel sits on a different combination of chalk, clay, sand, and limestone. Tim Atkin MW named them both Winemakers of the Year in 2021.
Flores de Callejo is the entry-level red and the clearest starting point for understanding what the estate does.
Place
Ribera del Duero is a red-wine appellation running east to west along the Duero river valley in Castilla y León, at altitudes mostly between 750 and 900 metres above sea level. That altitude is not incidental. Continental conditions bring warm days and cold nights during the growing season, slowing ripening and holding acidity in the grape. Tempranillo, the dominant variety across the appellation, retains its fresh red-fruit character better at this elevation than it would further south.
Sotillo de la Ribera sits in the western part of the Ribera del Duero zone, where calcareous soils, chalky sub-soils, and a mix of clay, sand, and limestone underlie the vineyards. The 27 separate parcels that the Callejo estate farms across these soils are not a single contiguous block. Each plot sits on a different soil combination, giving the winery access to varying drainage rates, water retention, and mineral profiles across the growing season.
Soil And Site
The estate's parcels span chalk, clay, sand, and limestone in different proportions. Chalk and limestone drain quickly and warm slowly, moderating vine stress and supporting fresh acidity through harvest. Clay holds moisture longer and produces wines with more body and darker fruit. The mix of 27 parcels across these soil types means the cellar team can select and blend across meaningfully different raw materials in any given vintage.
Story
Félix Callejo built the estate from a standing start in 1989, planting Tempranillo on a high-altitude plateau and bottling under the family name. Ribera del Duero was already gaining international attention at that point, largely through the reputation of Vega Sicilia and the arrival of Alejandro Fernández's Pesquera on export markets in the 1980s. The decision to found and grow a family estate in that climate was a clear commitment to the appellation's long-term direction.
The next chapter came from the children. José Félix and Noelia did not stay in Castilla y León to learn winemaking. They left for Bordeaux, Chile, California, and Argentina, working at estates whose methods and philosophies were far from the plateau they had grown up on. When they returned to take over the vineyards and cellar, they brought a practical knowledge of how the same grape behaves under different soils, climates, and cellar interventions. That training changed the estate's direction: the use of indigenous yeasts, gravity-fed cellar work, and large-format oak for the Flores de Callejo range are choices made by people who had seen the alternative firsthand.
Vineyards And Cellar
The estate farms 58 hectares divided across 27 parcels, with Tempranillo as the primary variety throughout. Vines are grown at high altitude on mixed soils, under a continental climate that produces strong diurnal temperature variation through the growing season. The cold nights preserve freshness in the grapes and push back full physiological ripeness, which affects the acidity and aromatic profile at harvest.
For Flores de Callejo, the fruit is manually harvested and fermented using indigenous yeasts rather than selected commercial strains. Indigenous fermentation is slower and less predictable, but it preserves aromatic complexity specific to the vineyard. The wine is gravity-fed into tanks and large French barrels, avoiding the extraction that pump-overs in conventional cellars can introduce. Malolactic fermentation was spontaneous for the 2023 vintage. The wine is aged for six months in French oak barrels with a capacity of 500 litres and stainless steel tanks. The 500-litre format has roughly half the oak-to-wine surface area of a standard 225-litre Bordeaux barrel, which means the wood contributes vanilla and toast notes to the wine without dominating the fruit.
Wines
The estate's range centres on Tempranillo, with Flores de Callejo at the entry level.
In The Glass
Flores de Callejo opens with fresh red fruit: ripe strawberries, raspberries, and red cherry, with redcurrant underneath adding lift. Floral notes rise with the fruit. Then vanilla and a trace of toast from the short time in 500-litre French oak. In the mouth, the wine is medium-bodied with light tannins. The bright acidity from high-altitude growing keeps it lively across the palate and prevents the red fruit from feeling heavy. The finish is clean and moderately long, with the fruit fading before the faint spice and pepper notes. The wine drinks well without food but holds up to simple red meat or lamb.
A Bottle To Understand It
Flores de Callejo is the bottle to start with. It is a Ribera del Duero Tempranillo aged briefly in large French oak and stainless steel, manually harvested and fermented with indigenous yeasts on the family's 58-hectare estate in Sotillo de la Ribera. The large-format oak keeps the wine fresh rather than woody. The fruit is forward and exact: red cherries, ripe strawberry, light pepper, a clean floral note. The acidity is firm enough to give the wine shape without making it austere. It is an honest representation of what high-altitude Tempranillo can be when the cellar choices favour the grape over the barrel.
Anecdote
José Félix Callejo left Sotillo de la Ribera with his sister Noelia and spent the next several years working through cellars on two continents. José Félix went to Petrus in Pomerol, then south to the Torres operation in Chile. Noelia went west to Araujo in Napa Valley, then to Cobos in Mendoza. The addresses were not accidental: Petrus for Right Bank Bordeaux Merlot and the discipline of its cellar; Torres Chile for scale and Cabernet at altitude; Araujo for California hillside fruit and whole-cluster thinking; Cobos for high-elevation Malbec. When they came back to their father's 58-hectare Tempranillo estate on the Castilian plateau, they had four different winemaking philosophies in their hands and one family grape to apply them to. Both were named Winemakers of the Year by Tim Atkin MW in 2021.
Final Word
Bodegas Felix Callejo is a second-generation Ribera del Duero estate where the current winemakers trained at some of the most demanding addresses in the wine world before returning to their family's plateau vineyards. The 27 parcels across mixed soils give the range genuine variety. Flores de Callejo is the clearest place to start: fresh, fruit-forward Tempranillo from high altitude, made without shortcuts.