Ilegal White Wine

Curiosities of life make this wine possible. Starting from a Verdejo vineyard of 1,847 feet of pre-phylloxera loam. When the quota for this plot was requested to put the grapes in the winery, the control body said that the vineyard was so old that it was unregistered and that they could not do anything, that this grape was illegal. Then it occurs to Ismael Gozalo not to search the vineyard and to put the grapes in the winery at night as if he had stolen them. This illegality makes it a wine with its own identity, where it is never racked, pumps are never used, only by gravity, hence its high CO2 content. The must passes into barrels that are 4 or 5 years old, where it spends between 10-11 months refining to provide the full potential of the varietal and the terroir where the vineyard sinks its roots.

Ismael Gozalo is a winegrower firmly rooted in Nieva, a municipality on the Segovian side of the Rueda DO where, due to the sandy character of its soils, it is still possible to find a certain amount of pre-phylloxera and ungrafted vineyards. His family has been linked traditionally to Viñedos de Nieva (today in the hands of the Martúe group), the reference winery in the area, until together with Javier Zaccagnini (Aalto and Sei Solo in Ribera del Duero) Gozalo created Ossian, a project focused on the enormous potential of these old Verdejo vineyards and which from the beginning became a great quality reference for Spanish whites. Ismael Gozalo has always been a firm defender of the land and nature and likes to talk about “eco-logical” agriculture (emphasizing the word “logic”) and biosynergies.

If you have any questions when purchasing Ilegal White Wine 2019, please contact the sommelier of our online wine store and he will advise you without obligation.