Bodegas y Vinedos Alnardo ‘PSI’ Tinto Fino 2021

Why is this Wine so Yummy?

About Bodegas y Vinedos Alnardo

PSI is the brainchild of Peter Sisseck, founder of Dominio de Pingus. The project is organised and run by winemaker Pablo Rubio. It’s a sub-regional assemblage of authentic Tinto Finos, recovered from co-op production and re-imagined. These are the old bush-vine holdings of the senior citizens of Ribera del Duero (old peasant guys in the main); heritage genetics of great quality, but which have been making un-inspired co-op plonk for decades. In conjunction with Pablo Rubio, Peter has re-fashioned the viticulture of these old vines, and rejuvenated the old guys’ relationship with their gnarled old plots. These old, low-cropped vines of Tinto Fino have never seen chemicals. They are carefully handled and under-made in large old wood and raw concrete. The idea is to render concentrated old-vine fruit in as delicate and poetic register as possible.

‘Alnardo’ is a lovely tract of land near Peter’s home, and is a mere namesake of the project, not its location.

PSI is the 23^rd letter of the Greek Alphabet (and also the initials P and Si of the maker, Señor Sisseck).

In the Vineyard

The main quality zone of Ribera del Duero is la Horra, in the centre of the appellation, above Rio Duero to the north between the village of Roa and the region’s city, Aranda del Duero. The Ribera of the Duero runs south from Sierra de la Demanda (a mountain range in the Sistema Iberica), which separates Ribera from Rioja. Ribera’s handful of stars (Pingus itself, Cillar de Silos, and Telmo Rodriguez) work in the la Horra zone.

Peter and Pablo by now organise seven villages to assemble PSI .

These villages radiate south, north and east towards Soria from la Horra/Aranda. The vines grow at 830-920 metres on clay-lime and sandy-gravel soils whose drainage controls excess fertility. PSI can only accept fruit from a given village once Pablo has collectivised the entire local co-op – it’s all in, or nothing. The scale of this is unbelievable.  From these seven villages they work 200 hectares scattered across 1200 plots (averaging less than 0.2 hectares), organised as 17 separate ‘harvests’.

The villages in question are scattered south, north and east of la Horra/Aranda:

Castrillo de la Vega is below the river south-west of Aranda and la Horra and grows Garnacha at 830 metres, while Fuentenebro in the southern extreme of Ribera del Duero has deep pebbly, ferrous soils.

la Aguilera and Gumiel de Izan, are north-west and north of Aranda  on calcareous gravel and sand at 900m.

To the east are the twin villages of Zazuar and Quemada, then Peñaranda de Duero (filigree calcareous soil layers).

The most important of these is Quemada – in between three different rivers, its sandy-calcareous soil has red silt and gravels. About a fifth of the wine for PSI comes from Quemada. The other six villages are all organised as one at the PSI bodega in Aranda de Duero. However, the Quemada fruit is handled on-site at the old Quemada co-op bodega, enabling Pablo more direct organisational control over the 300 growers of Quemeda.

A note on old bush vines of Tinto Fino/Tinto del Pais

Tempranillo’s local name is Tinto Fino and is also sometimes called Tinto del Pais. It is not Tempranillo by another name, but a distinct familial strain, as is Tinta de Toro, the version of ‘Tempranillo’ native to Toro a little to the west of Ribera. These familial distinctions are more significant than clonal variations, which occur at a local level. So, sniffing around the old plantings, and talking to the old-timers of Ribera during the early 90s, Peter Sisseck did his own work in identifying Tinto Fino, distinguishing it from ‘Tempranillo’, and identifying several key clonal variations within the local Tinto Fino. Likewise he combed the various sub-regions looking at different soil and micro-climates and eventually located what he thought was the ideal combination of site, clonal selection of Tinto Fino and old bush vines pruned ‘en vaso’. Three ancient plots near to one another in the ‘La Horra’ zone, just north of Aranda del Duero in the central part of Ribera del Duero were acquired and became the basis of Pingus. Similar plots constitute Flor de Pingus, and more lately the regional project PSI.

The old vines of Ribera del Duero’s native strain of the Tempranillo family are rare, and becoming more so. In 1990, when Peter Sisseck arrived in the region, there were only 9000 hectares under vine in the DO and 6000 of these were old Tinto Fino bush-vines planted en vaso. Nowadays, there are 22000 ha and only 4000 of these are old locals. Worse, much of the new industrial planting is ‘viral Tempranillo’ grown on trellis (the term actually quotes Alvaro Palacios, but the sentiment is echoed by Peter Sisseck at every turn). Ribera del Duero is being systematically de-natured by the planting of industrial clones of higher-yielding, easier-to-grow Rioja Tempranillo. Meanwhile, the Consejo Regulador of D.O Ribera del Duero sits silently in observation, taking his tithes and keeping it zipped. I interviewed him on the matter recently and he proved an adept at shape-shifting-refusal to address the point.

In the Winery

The de-stemmed fruit for PSI is fermented in large oval foudre (old 5500 litre wooden vats) although some of the fruit handled in Quemada is made in large neutral concrete vats. The wine is held in neutral 11,000 litre vats for most of its 17 months of maturation prior to release. However, for a part of the year, an intriguing barrel-regime quirk comes into play for part of the PSI assemblage …

In another part of Ribera del Duero (the western village of Quintanilla de Onésimo), Peter Sisseck is usually ageing two vintages of Pingus and Flor de Pingus in French oak barriques (mainly Taransaud, not much of it new). I say usually, but for about 6 months of each year, in between bottling one vintage and beginning the ageing of another, the barrels would otherwise be empty and at risk of drying out. Instead of taking hygiene and integrity risks with Dominio de Pingus’s expensive oak, Peter sends Pingus’s roughly 300 barrels to Pablo for use at PSI for about six months. The Pingus barrels are protected by constant fill with wine. When the next year’s Pingus wines are ready for ageing, PSI is put back into large vats and Pingus gets its oak back in perfect condition. PSI, which starts and ends its maturation in big old oak vats, benefits from part of the blend gaining a modest touch of positive barrel character.

Where in the World is Bodegas y Vinedos Alnardo?

Bodegas y Vinedos Alnardo is located in Quintanilla de Onésimo in the Ribera del Duero within the Castilla y León region of Spain.