White Wine

Belondrade

Belondrade Y Lurton 2023, 75cl

DO Rueda

Belondrade

It is the emblematic wine of the winery and an icon in the world of Spanish wine. This 100% Verdejo is extremely complex and requires time and air to open up, but when it does, it is a white wine like no other. It is a wine for aging, with potential for cellaring, designed to be consumed in the next 6 to 8 years, during which it will reveal all its qualities.

Exclusively from the Quinta San Diego, where the vineyard is a mosaic of 23 plots with different soils, orography, planting density, orientation, and ages ranging from 10 to 75 years. All the plots are hand-harvested.

Harvest: 2023 was a harvest that was difficult to interpret and marked by great uncertainty until the end. Precipitation was apparently high but poorly distributed throughout the cycle, coexisting with slightly above-normal average temperatures. A sharp rise in temperatures in April and several hailstorms in the summer led us to look at the sky with concern. The presence of raisined grapes required special dedication from the around 50 harvesters and the sorting table, with meticulous grain-by-grain work.

The yields were lower than usual, but thanks to the decision to bring forward the start of the harvest to August 24th, it was possible to preserve high acidity and compensate for the more mature and concentrated profile of the later-harvested plots.

Viticulture and Winemaking: The fermentations are spontaneous, and the aging on lees takes place in French oak barrels with distinct characteristics, for 10 months. At the end, an assemblage and careful selection are made. All production is bottled at once and remains in bottle for at least 5 months before being released to the market.

Belondrade y Lurton is a masterpiece that combines tradition, terroir, and innovation, ensuring that each bottle is as special as its legacy. Extremely popular, it sells out almost instantly after release. With its unmistakable label, fully orange, it is a wine that also stands out on the shelf or the table. In the early years after its release, it was dubbed by the Spaniards “orange label,” a name by which it is still recognized today.

Awards

96/100 – Guía Peñín (2022 vintage)
94/100 – DWA-score (2021 vintage)
94/100 – DWA-score (2018 vintage)
95/100 – DWA-score (2015 vintage)
92/100 – Wine Searcher – 10 Best Rueda Wines

Allergens information

Contains sulphites.

Belondrade

All great stories begin with a dream. Didier Belondrade’s was none other than to create a White Wine with a capital “W” in the land of Cervantes.

The idea germinated in 1992, when the French couple Didier Belondrade and Brigitte Lurton tasted their first Verdejo wine. Love at first sight! Making wine and the wine business were not new to them, with deep roots in Bordeaux, but this wine made them think about a new project. And in 1994, the foundation stone of the project was laid with the establishment in Nava Del Rey, a solid commitment to the Castilian plateau terroir and an indigenous grape variety: Verdejo.

And in 1996, the dream materialized with the launch of the first vintage; for the first time, BELONDRADE Y LURTON earned a place on Spain’s finest tables. Thanks to an excellent reception from critics and customers, BELONDRADE’s reputation echoed across the world. The first steps were taken in the Japanese and American markets.

Three years later, with the aim of making BELONDRADE a “Bordeaux château in Spain,” it was essential to establish the project’s foundation on a key principle: owning its vineyards. This is how Quinta San Diego began to take shape with the planting of the first four parcels: “Tomillar Grande,” “Tomillar Pequeño,” “Camino Ventosa,” and “Bodega.”

Today, BELONDRADE has 40 hectares of its own vineyards divided into 23 parcels of different sizes. This mosaic of vineyards produces very different musts depending on the type of soil of each parcel, their orientation, age, rootstocks, and clones.

BELONDRADE’s vineyard is located about 750 meters above sea level and a few kilometers from the Douro River near Tordesillas. The climate is continental with low rainfall (between 300 and 350 mm per year), characterized by long, cold winters and short, hot summers, with a large temperature difference between day and night.

The plateau soils are of Cenozoic (or Tertiary) origin; they formed about 60 million years ago and are characterized by their low organic matter content. They are mainly composed of a layer of rolled pebbles about 10 to 60 centimeters deep, a subsoil layer of clay, and a deep layer of limestone. In each of the parcels, varying percentages of rolled pebbles, sand, and clay mix, giving the musts a unique personality and style.

The planting density ranges from 1,100 to 3,300 plants per hectare, with an average yield of 30 to 35 hectoliters per hectare. 100% of the vineyard is owned by the company, with an average age of twenty-five years.

As a proponent of sustainable and environmentally friendly viticulture, BELONDRADE practices organic viticulture without herbicides or pesticides. In this way, it fosters the biodiversity present in the vineyard and moves closer to the most natural and authentic expression of the “terroir.”