Murillo

Viñas Murillo is named for a man who never owned a winery. Alfonso García Murillo, known around Alcazarén simply as "Murillo", was one of the last corredores of the Rueda country, the brokers who matched growers with cellars and knew exactly where the best vines and wines could be found, from Segovia to Medina del Campo. His grandsons, brothers Alfonso and José Antonio García Cano, grew up among those vineyards, heirs to five generations of family farming in this corner of Valladolid. They made their first wines under their grandfather's name in 2018, and in 2020 opened their own cellar at the entrance to the village.

The heart of the estate is the Pago de Chapirete, where, as their grandfather liked to say, there have always been vines. On sandy, silica-rich soils that phylloxera could never penetrate, a small plot of ungrafted Verdejo bush vines, well over a century old, still grows at around 800 metres, farmed organically and yielding less than 2,500 kilos per hectare. Younger trellised parcels sit nearby on the high plateau at about 750 metres, where short summers, bitter winters, scant rainfall and wide swings between day and night temperatures keep the fruit fresh and aromatic.

Veteran oenologist María Sevilla guides the cellar, favouring gentle pressing, cool stainless-steel fermentation and time on the lees, so that every bottle speaks plainly of Verdejo and of Alcazarén.