Benjamin Romeo has been the winemaker at Artadi since its founding in 1985. He was born in the heart of Rioja in the
In 1995 Benjamin bought an old 14th century winery cave under the fortress of San Vicente de la Sonsierra. For centuries the wine was made at the winery in the village below and then carried in goatskins to the caves. Because each goatskin varied in capacity, there was a person stationed in this room at the entrance to the aging cave whose sole function was to count and weigh each skin as it came into that particular cave. When the wine was ready for sale, the process was reversed and the skins were counted and weighed on their way out. That room where the counting and inventory took place is called the Contador, thus the name of the wine.
Seven centuries later, Benjamin Romeo is using these same caves to store and age his wines in near perfect conditions, thus respecting old traditions while utilizing ever-evolving modern wine technology. Grapes are sourced from very old vines from a small old hillside vineyard known by the locals as “corros”. The elevation of these plots is from 1,250-1,500 ft. These vineyards were chosen because they have the old clones of Tempranillo, which yield an average of 1kg per vine. The soil is calcareous clay, poor in organic matter. The climate is Continental.
WINES
