At A Glance
- Field
- Detail
- Region
- Soria sector of Ribera del Duero
- Village
- Atauta
- Main grape
- Tinto Fino, also called Tempranillo
- Signature wine
- Viñas Viejas de Soria
- Defining feature
- Ungrafted vines on limestone, sand with limestone, and clay with limestone
The Producer
From 1999 through 2010, Bertrand Sourdais helped create Dominio de Atauta and served as its technical director. He founded Bodegas Antídoto with others in 2010, then founded his personal Dominio de Es project in 2011.
The project centers on 25 parcels totaling 3.5 hectares, all in Atauta, and produces about 10,000 bottles. Its core grape is ungrafted Tinto Fino, also called Tempranillo, planted across limestone, sand with limestone, and clay with limestone soils. Viñas Viejas uses some whole clusters, while wines from individual sites are normally destemmed. Whole clusters retain the stems during fermentation, which can add perfume and tannin; destemming removes that stem material.
Place
Atauta sits in the Soria sector of Ribera del Duero, where altitude corresponds with changes in the ground beneath the vines. The estate works across pure limestone, pure sand with limestone, and pure clay with limestone.
The same ungrafted Tinto Fino therefore grows in several physical settings within one village. The vineyard project is tied to Atauta rather than spread across the wider Ribera del Duero region.
Wines
Dominio de Es has a central wine, Viñas Viejas de Soria, and a three wine single parcel hierarchy of Carravilla, La Mata, and La Diva. Viñas Viejas comes from vineyards Sourdais regards as Atauta premier cru, with a predominance of calcareous sands.
Viñas Viejas de Soria 2020 comes from 24 microparcels totaling 2.69 hectares at 950 to 1,000 metres. It includes Albillo Mayor, Alicante Bouschet, and Tinto Fino and is raised in French oak Burgundy barrels. The wine showed plum, black cherry, blueberry, cassis, bourbon vanilla, and herbal nuances, with a balanced palate and fine grained chalky tannins.
Carravilla is a south facing parcel with high limestone content. La Mata comes from an old vineyard recorded in the 1904 land register, principally Tinto Fino with 2% Albillo. La Diva is a 0.3 hectare, pre phylloxera parcel of Tinto Fino and Albillo on pure sand over limestone rock.
Final Word
The vineyards are farmed without chemical fertilizers, herbicides, or pesticides and with biodynamic practices. Dominio de Es keeps its work within the Atauta landscape, where ungrafted vines occupy several limestone based soils.