Las Olas del Melillero

Additional Information

GRAPES: Petit Verdot, Syrah and Tempranillo and Pedro Ximénez.

VINIFICATION: Red grapes, barrel fermented and aged for 14 months. Pedro Ximénez fermented and aged in stainless steel tanks. Grand-Vas method.

HARVEST: The grapes are hand-picked in boxes of 9 kg.

VINEYARDS: located in the Natural Park Montes de Malaga. Pedro Ximenez grapes come from small plots of between 50 and 100 years old, whereas the Petit verdot, Syrah and Tempranillo vines were planted in the 90’s in the historical Finca La Fresneda.

These are dry farmed, mountain vineyards located at an altitude between 800 and 1,000 m. It is an extremely steep topography, with slopes of between 46 and 76% that requires manual labour using age-old viticulture techniques. In these conditions, the yields are very low (900-1000 kg/ha), but the concentration of the berry is optimal for making quality wines.

CLIMATOLOGY: Sub-humid Mediterranean climate with an average temperature of 15-16 ºC. In the latest four years the annual rainfall is much below the historical 500- 585 mm. Nevertheless, due to the advanced age of the vines their production (already very low) is not much affected.

SOILS: Soils in La Fresneda in Sierras de Camarolos is pure limestone. Montes de Málaga has extremely complex and ancient soils. Predominant phyllites (slate of clay origin) date back 600 million years ago but greywacke, schists, magma intrusions, quarz, silica, chalky, clay, sandy soils and also found in the same plot. Both are very poor in organic content and wit good acidity to make quality wines.

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