César Maté and Marta Castrillo
Spain
Old vines + High altitude vineyards + Two passionate winemakers = Unforgettable wine
- César and Marta are on a hunt for vineyards that boast old, high quality vines that have fallen on hard times. Vines like these are some of the wine worlds best kept secrets so Cesar and Marta have taken it upon themselves to find vineyards like these and restore them to their former glory
- As well as having some of the oldest vines going at their disposal, César and Marta work in a pretty exceptional region. Their vineyards in the Northern Spanish region of Ribera del Duero sit at a staggering 900 meter altitude making their wines ultra fresh.
- The pair were turning heads from the start, when their very first wine to hit the market received a thoroughly impressive 95 Parker points. It's been onwards and upwards ever since.
Vineyard Location
César Maté and Marta Castrillo's Story
I was 18 years old, it was summer and I was accompanying my father who I helped during my vacations from his work. My father was a poultry farmer and he told me this day, after finishing the day, that we were going to stop to buy wine at the town's winery, a few km from where he had one of the chicken farms. We entered and the manager of the winery, who knew my father, commented "why don't you come this year to do the harvest campaign with us?" I had enrolled to study economics at the University of Salamanca. I didn't know what to say, I had doubts, but I thought it would be interesting and finally I said yes.
That YES may have been the most important of my life.
The first contact with a winery changed my life. I discovered what my true vocation was: Oenology.
During the next four years I was combining economics studies with working in the winery, with increasing interest, until I finished my first studies and started training in oenology. In 2004 I got my first work contract as a winemaker in a Ribera del Duero winery, a job that I have complemented with that of advisor to other wineries and member of the tasting committee of the Ribera del Duero Regulatory Council, passing the entrance tests with the number 2 among 211 winemakers.
If I have to highlight until today a turning point in my professional path is the day that, due to destiny, we make the first production of Primordium, in 2008. It is the first harvest of our main farm in Gumiel del Mercado, planted 3 years before. ; This wine, perhaps the one I remember the best in my life, obtains 95 RP points and represents a key boost in the development of the Bodegas Marta Mate project, which was consolidated in 2013 with the acquisition of the Tubilla del Lago winery and, for me It is the moment when I can release my fresh, elegant and fluid idea of wines and feel enologically fulfilled.
At the present time and at 41 years old, I am in the best moment of my life, we will continue traveling and learning with the necessary humility of a profession that has no limits or borders, convinced that those ideas of youth were not just illusions.
The most exciting is yet to come.
Cesar Maté
