Artuke's Paso las Manas is a single vineyard wine that comes from a beautiful site tucked against the very edge of the Sierra Cantabria, right on the northern extreme of the Rioja Alavesa area. It's an incredibly special site in terms of terroir but also because of what it signifies both to the brothers who make up Artuke, Arturo and Kiki de Miguel. It's also a site that we at Alimentaria have had the privilege of was watching grow over the years as our annual trips to Spain begun just after the brothers first planted the vineyard. For Arturo and Kiki, this site was marks their contribution to the family legacy, in a family who's vine-growing traditions go back five generations this new site, purchased, plowed, planted and cared for by them will be a contribution to the future generations of the de Miguel family. It's position against the mountains means it's the last ripening, coldest site, and usually producers the highest acidity wine. It's soils are also completely inundated with big chunks of limestone that have made their way down the mountains in the preceding centuries, luckily though, and one of the reasons this site is so unique is that sits on a spur line, mean the water that runs off the mountain side is diverted to the side of Paso las Manas - had the vineyard been planted 200 meters to the side, the run off from the mountains would have made it a super high yielding but terrible quality site. As it is, even at this young age, it looks as if it could become one of the top cru's of Rioja.
