Quiroga de Pablo: faith moves mountains

Juan Luis, Maite and Diego are the three brothers at the head of the Quiroga de Pablo family winery (Azofra), the only one in the municipality and with an extraordinary export vocation, almost 100% of its production: «Spain was then very brand-oriented and, If you don’t have it, there are few options beyond the price, so, although some told us if we were crazy for trying to export without having a strong prior presence in Spain, time has proven us right.

This is how Juan Luis Quiroga, the house’s winemaker, explains the trajectory of this winery that now wants to make the leap to small national distribution with a new line of wines on which they have been working, based on trial and error, for several years: Abuelo Cayo Family Collection, which focuses on the vineyards and in which the oak becomes a completely secondary actor. “We work 30 hectares of property in the area, with soils, varieties and slopes of different exposures that we already know perfectly, so the time had come to go a little outside the traditional script,” explains Juan Luis.

The three brothers –Diego in the vineyard; Maite, marketing and support in the vineyard and commercial; and Juan Luis, in technical and commercial management – ​​manage Quiroga de Pablo: «We are the sixth generation of winegrowers and we are proud that our parents continued with the winery instead of taking the grapes to a cooperative, but above all of our grandfather , Cayo, who was the one who continued producing in the cellar after acquiring 100% from his brothers,” explains Maite. From this gratitude is born the new collection of wines, which they have named Abuelo Cayo, a spectacular bet that Juan Luis and Maite present, with several wines for the first time, next Thursday the 20th for the tasting club delomejordelvinoderioja.com.

The tasting

Juan Luis will start with Lagar de Cayo Tempranillo Blanco 2023, a varietal with which Quiroga de Pablo has won numerous competitions: «We had doubts with the white tempranillo because the first preparations did not completely convince us, but in the end we chose to plant at 700 meters above sea level and on a slope with western exposure to “not having a lot of direct sunlight.” Thank goodness they did it because this chronicler can assure that it is one of the best ‘naked’ white Tempranillos that he has tried.

After the ‘aperitif’, the winemaker will present Abuelo Cayo Family Collection Tempranillo Blanco 2023: “It will be cool to taste the two wines at the same time, the first, which goes directly from stainless steel to the bottle, and the second with a very light passage through wood.” “In both cases,” he continues, “I give them some fat with their lees, but in Abuelo Cayo we are going to appreciate a little more mileage.”

Grandfather Cayo Rosado 2022 It is a tribute to the traditional ‘claret’ of the area, although with highly selected grapes: “We make it with red garnacha, from a plot 550 meters away, and with white tempranillo, and also with a slight aging in barrels.” “The wood in these wines interests me just enough and, after several tests, we launched it with the 2022 harvest.” It couldn’t have had a better premiere: the prescriber Tim Atkin endorsed it with the title of best rosé of the year from Rioja.

The reds

Within the new family collection, Quiroga de Pablo has also opted for a Grenache varietal: “I think we have found the profile of the variety in our area, Najerilla, with a high layer of color for a Garnacha, power and fruit.” “We try to take great care of the finesse,” he adds, “so that the palate is very pleasant, so all our wines go from the barrel to the concrete because it rounds them out a lot.”

Abuelo Cayo Field Blend 2019 It is a hillside parcel of Tempranillo, Garnacha and Mazuelo, a vineyard planted with the common sense of the experience of its parents: «The Tempranillo in the lower part, the Garnacha in the middle and, above, where there is less fertility and almost the bedrock appears, the mazuelo. Juan Luis is especially proud of this wine: “We vinified the three varieties together and I think we have achieved a powerful red wine, with a lot of black fruit and, despite a long aging of 18 months in French oak, with a lot of freshness.”

And, finally, a sample of the most traditional line, with which Quiroga de Pablo reached foreign markets: Lagar de Cayo Reserva 2015. «It is 24 months in barrel, 100% Tempranillo, which I don’t like to call classic either although it is, because there is wood, but also fruit.» “I don’t like aged, evolved wines,” he concludes, “and, like everyone else, I give a lot of importance to cleanliness and directness.”