Aseginolaza & Leunda Matsanko is a coupage of Garnacha, Tempranillo and Viura, made by Aseginolaza & Leunda in the D.O. Navarra. This wine comes from old vines located in Dicastillo, in the region of Tierra Estella, in the west of the area (54 km from Pamplona). Jon and Pedro, the two people who run this project, came here to produce a wine that showcases the great qualities of an area that currently goes unnoticed, but which has a lot to say.
Biologists by profession and winegrowers by passion, the two friends have set out to recover the old Garnacha vines that sometimes appear abandoned in this area south of Montejurra (a mountain in the Pre-Pyrenees), at an altitude of 490 metres above sea level on sandstone and coarse-grained soils. Here the main varieties are Tempranillo and Cabernet Sauvignon. In the 1970s almost 90% of the vineyards in Navarra were planted with Garnacha; however, in the following decades other grapes took away the prominence of this variety that originated in Aragon. So it is easy to understand why when Jon and Pedro found themselves in this area with old vines of this variety, trained using the bush method and dry-farmed, they treated the clusters as little gems, worthy of all the care and attention in the world. The work is entirely manual, seeking to be environmentally friendly, without the use of chemicals or pesticides. The harvest is carried out manually into 15 kilo boxes.
In the winery, Jon and Pedro are also in favour of minimal intervention, so the Aseginolaza & Leunda Matsanko clusters go directly to fermentation (without destemming or crushing) in stainless steel tanks. This work will be carried out by native yeasts. At the same time, daily manual cap plunges will be carried out to ensure the extraction of colour and polyphenols. After this Aseginolaza & Leunda Matsanko is manually pressed and racked back to stainless steel tanks awaiting malolactic fermentation. The final touch comes from the 5 months that Aseginolaza & Leunda Matsanko spends in used French oak barrels. Finally, Aseginolaza & Leunda Matsanko is bottled unfiltered (it is only clarified by natural decantation) and a small dose of sulphur is added to guarantee the quality of this wine which, despite its youth, reveals itself as one with experience.