Bodega Cuatro Rayas highlights diversity of Spain’s Rueda region

Bodega Cuatro Rayas, a substantial player in Spain’s Rueda region, illustrated the versatility of Verdejo at the drinks business Spring Tasting.

BASED IN La Seca, Valladolid, Bodega Cuatro Rayas has become a key player in Spanish white wine production. As a longstanding cooperative producer of Verdejo wines within the Rueda appellation, it has built a reputation for heritage, innovation and sensitivity to the market. The legacy of several generations of families passionate about viticulture and wine is still felt, but so is the drive for transformation and excellence from those taking up the baton.

The cooperative’s 300 vine-growing members own around 2,400 hectares of vineyards, and the organisation as a whole employs around 700 men and women in 30 rural villages. The winery strives for the perfect balance between profitability, value and sustainability in all its activities. With so much of the local community involved, it is proud to affirm that its Verdejo is synonymous with quality of life and care for the local people and environment.

STYLES FOR EVERY DRINKER

One reason for the company’s success is the diversity in its portfolio. Focusing on signature grape Verdejo, the range shows a number of different, but much admired approaches to the grape.

Bodega Cuatro Rayas’ Four Lines Verdejo, for instance, is a reliable flagship bottling. The wine, a Silver medallist at the drinks business Spring Tasting for the 2023 vintage, is marketed in the UK with an English name and sold in supermarkets. Its name refers to the point of convergence of four municipalities, where gravelly soils are ideal for Verdejo.

Its production attends to several key consumer interests. The striking blue bottle stands out on the shelf, but also protects the wine against oxidation for a fresh, lively style. For the same reason of freshness, the grapes are harvested at night, preserving aromatic compounds and acidity in the must. The wine also meets expectations of sustainability, using a recycled and recyclable closure, as well as FSC-certified paper.

However, the producer is also at the forefront of DO Rueda’s innovative initiatives. The designation Gran Vino de Rueda, introduced in 2020, has been created to demonstrate Rueda’s quality potential. All wines under the classification are made with controlled yields and aged for at least one year.

For Bodega Cuatro Rayas, this inspired a detailed research and development programme investigating Verdejo’s ageing potential. Its team prioritised quality through using old goblet-trained vines, sustainable soil management and rigorous selection, both in manual harvesting and in the winery. It also developed innovative programmes like archaeoenology, recovering indigenous yeasts from traditional wineries. For the limited release of just over 13,000 bottles, it used careful pneumatic pressing and then steel, concrete eggs and French oak barrels to age the wine.

The result is the Cuatro Rayas Longverdejo, a standard bearer for the classification. The 2022 vintage won a Gold medal at the drinks business Spring Tasting, described by the MW judges as “a persistent, layered and complex wine with plenty of youthful appeal, but also the power and structure to age”.