The Octagono Estate
Marcelo Castro Vera runs a distillery, a brewery, a communal eatery, and shipping container hotel called El Nidal all from the same property high in the mountains behind the city of Leon in the state of Guanajuato. The winery is run mostly by women and directed by winemaker Celia Morales. Fermentations and aging are in buried amphoras (made by local artisans), grapes are pressed by hand and trod by foot, and there’s no use of sulfur or other additives.
Details:
- Wines are fermented for up to 9 months in buried clay pots molded by local San Felipe and Dolores Hidalgo artisans. Sourcing locally brought about the revival of ancestral methods of making pottery - a tradition almost lost in time as sourcing went to China. In forming the amphoras they tried to recreate the classic Georgian kvevri form and ended up with a hybrid that has a particular Mexican imprint. It is their hope that as natural winemaking gradually picks up in Mexico, more winemakers turn to local artisans to source their amphoras, instead of turning to foreign experts, thereby boosting local economies and breathing new life into this millenarian art form
- The grapes they work with come from farmers that work with their land and plants with the same “natural” approach – farming is organic and done without irrigation.
- They don’t shy away from experimenting with table grapes, like Red Globe, which has delivered a surprise with its unexpected joyous temperament.
Total Production: 5 wines, 2,000 cases
2022 Rosado - Octagono
Tasting Notes and Drinking Window:
Rosa de Peru? Its technical name is Listan Prieta and it’s one of the 3 original grapes introduced to the land we now call Mexico in the early 1500s, (though almost no one makes wine from it anymore). Drought resistant and high yielding with minimal intervention, Octagono found this to be just the perfect grape to mirror their respect for the environment. Bursting from the glass with loads of fresh berry notes, and intermingled with a variety of fresh cut herbs, the wine follows up with a chiseled and crispy palate that is as angular and diverse as it is satisfying. Careful not to go overboard on this one, it’s a temptress to say the least.
This wine is as fresh, striking and radical as any you’re likely to find. Those looking for the purest expression of place in wines made by natural methods with zero intervention have found what they are looking for here. Octagono makes wines in a completely natural approach using no electricity or even the most basic machines in the harvest or winemaking process. Octagono’s wines are imbued with the electric energy characteristic of something that is in the process of becoming – something whose principle attribute is that feeling of exhilaration associated with a formative journey. Deeply expressive and wild, these wines are the essence of exploration itself.
330 cases made
Drinking window: upon release 3 years
Vintage:
2022
Blend:
100% Rosa de Peru
Producer:
Octagono
Winemaker:
Celia Morales
Vineyards:
Grapes were sourced from a vineyard planted in 2005 on silty clay-loam soils at an elevation of 6,500 ft.
Winemaking:
Grapes were destemmed, foot trodden, and fermented and macerated on the skins for 2 days before racking off the skins to rest for 6 months on the lees in the same amphoras before bottling.
All Octagono wines are natural, unfiltered, unfined and fermented with whole grape clusters on ambient yeast, and skin contact. SO2 is never added at any point in the process.
Sulfites: No sulfites added
Farming:
Organic, biodynamic, sustainable
Alcohol:
11%
