Bodegas Arrocal

Gumiel de Mercado is a small Burgos village inside Ribera del Duero, laid out in medieval fashion around a hill that earlier generations dug through with underground cellars to make and keep their wine. Bodegas Arrocal works from Eras de Santa María in the village and makes its wines only from its own grapes.

The house began in 1999, when Rosa Arroyo and Moisés Calvo, both born in the village, took over the family vineyard and started planting new plots. They finished building the winery in 2003. Their sons Rodrigo and Asier Calvo now run it, and the Village label calls them the ninth generation of viticultores. Directo al Paladar reports that the brothers trained in Oregon and in Umbria. Their own aim, as their Dutch importer Grapedistrict puts it, is terroir wine with less barrel ageing and more freshness and fruit.

In 2019 the family described about 50 hectares at around 830 metres, on soils that mix limestone, sand, clay and gravel. Tempranillo, here called Tinta Fina, covered some 45 of them, with small plots of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and the white Albillo. Systembolaget now gives the estate as 85 hectares, so the vineyard has either grown or the figures count different things. Importers and the Spanish press describe the current wines as organic.

The winery was built to move grapes and wine by gravity, and in 2019 it held about 600 barrels, four fifths French oak and the rest American. The older Arrocal line runs from a young oaked red through Crianza, Selección Especial and Reserva de Familia. The brothers have since added wines named for places rather than for time in wood: a Village from the family plots around Gumiel, single-paraje bottlings such as Los Colmenares, and a single-plot white, Parcela Canteras.