Description
Esencia Rural was founded in 2001, but as the case with many in Spain, Julián Ruiz's family has been growing grapes and farming in this area for more generations than he can remember. Agriculture is his life with grapes being only one of the many crops he grows. 38 hectares of land (at between 680m-740m of elevation) include black garlic, peppers, onions, potatoes, saffron....if La Mancha has it, he grows it.
He's also pretty much the godfather of Spanish orange wine. Actually, in his eyes it's just white wine. His family has been making it this way long before "everybody and their mother," as he puts it, started making orange wine. In fact, he has a problem with a lot of the orange wine being made in Spain as he feels most people are taking shortcuts. When you taste his wines, you'll understand what he means. We're talking a minimum of 3 months on the skins...
Organically grown Airén grapes (some of them extremely old, ungrafted, dry-farmed, bush-vines) on sandy- calcareous with some clay near Toledo. Hand harvested with spontaneous yeast fermentation and maceration on the skins in steel tanks for 4 months followed by aging in amphora for 2 months. No fining, slight filtering, and a low dose of SO2 at bottling. A skin contact/orange wine that is a little less funky and wild than its sibling "Pampaneo Airén Natural."