Vega Sicilia

What separates this estate from its neighbours is a decision taken in 1864: Bordeaux varieties planted into Castilian ground beside Tempranillo, when nobody nearby was doing it. Roughly 40 percent of the vineyard is still Bordeaux stock, about 25 percent Cabernet Sauvignon alone. The winery also runs its own cooperage, where a master cooper makes the American oak barrels the wines age in. Unico is made only in years the house judges exceptional.

The winery is a run of production buildings behind a brick façade, reached along a drive planted with bamboo, sequoias and maples. Valbuena 5º is vinified in a hall of stainless steel tanks; the wines destined for Unico ferment in nineteen oak tanks behind sliding doors. Beyond them sit the cooperage, a climate-controlled bottling hall, and ageing rooms holding over 3,000 barrels. For the visit itself, see Vega Sicilia Único Experience.

Harvest is the estate's fixed point in the year. Unico 2015 was picked by hand into 12-kilo boxes between 15 September and 3 October; the Valbuena 5º 2020 came in between 21 September and 5 October. The house publishes no visitor season and no opening months, so timing is agreed with the winery rather than read off a calendar. Book any date well ahead of the harvest weeks.

Bodegas Vega Sicilia, S.A. is registered with the appellation at Ctra. Nac. 122, km. 322, 47359 Valbuena de Duero, Valladolid. The house does not publish visiting hours, a tasting price or a booking form. It publishes one telephone number, +34 983 680 147, and one email address, so any visit is arranged directly and in advance. Buying the wine is a separate process: written application, approval as a client, then a quota allocated vintage by vintage.

The winery stands on the N-122 at km 322, at 41.629033, -4.293897, on the Duero at Valbuena de Duero; Valladolid is the nearest city. Ribera del Duero runs 115 km along the river, so producers here are genuinely far apart and a car does the work. Bodegas Alión, the same family's winery, is 15 km away, and Peñafiel Castle and Wine Museum is in the same appellation.

Vega Sicilia is a winery on the north bank of the Duero at Valbuena de Duero, Valladolid, in Ribera del Duero. Eloy Lecanda began making wine here commercially in 1864. The estate runs to about 1,000 hectares, 210 of them under vine, and makes three reds: Valbuena 5º, Unico, and the non-vintage Unico Reserva Especial. The appellation around it was granted in 1982, 118 years after Lecanda started.

The name Vega de Sicilia appears in documents for the property from 1577. Toribio Lecanda bought the estate from the Marquis of Valbuena in 1848, and his son Eloy began making wine commercially there in 1864. Cosme Palacio, tenant under the Herrero family, brought the winemaker Txomin Garramiola in during 1907. The seed company Prodes bought the property in 1950, Hans Neumann in 1965, and the Álvarez family in April 1982.

The estate covers about 1,000 hectares, of which 210 are planted, across 19 soil types and 64 plots. Vines sit between 700 and 900 metres, spaced 3 by 1.5 metres for 2,222 plants per hectare, each carrying 1 to 1.5 kg of fruit. Tempranillo, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot are the three varieties. The oldest parcel, Hontañón, was planted in 1910 after phylloxera and supplies the estate's mother plants.

Three habits describe the working method better than any tasting note. The house states it waits a minimum of eleven years before using a vine's fruit. Ground is cleared of nematodes biologically, using plants that take five years to do it, before anything is replanted. And oak, cork and walnut have been planted on the estate to supply the corks and barrel wood that later generations will use.