Vina Mayor

Bodegas Viña Mayor is at Quintanilla de Onésimo, in the province of Valladolid, on the stretch of the Duero valley known as the Milla de Oro, the Golden Mile. That is the run of country between Valladolid and Peñafiel where Vega Sicilia, Pingus and most of Ribera del Duero's famous names sit, and being on it matters. This is the western, higher, slightly cooler end of the appellation.

The winery was founded in 1986 and is marking forty years in Ribera del Duero this year. It farms ten hectares of vineyard on the property itself and buys the rest of its fruit on long-term contracts from growers across the zone, which is how most bodegas of this size in Ribera operate. The long contracts are the important part: they let the winery decide when the grapes come off rather than take what turns up at the gate.

The building is worth a word. The modern winemaking and ageing halls sit above a set of underground cellars that cover a good deal more ground than the buildings on the surface, held at fifteen to sixteen degrees so the barrel ageing happens at a constant temperature without machinery doing the work.

Viña Mayor now belongs to Sogrape, the Portuguese family firm behind Sandeman, Ferreira, Offley and Mateus, which also owns Bodegas LAN in Rioja and Santiago Ruiz in Rías Baixas. The winemaker is Álvaro Izquierdo. The house line on style is that the fruit should not be buried by the barrel, and on the evidence of the Roble and the Reserva that is a fair description rather than a slogan. The brand also makes a Verdejo over the boundary in Rueda.

Ribera del Duero itself is a hard place to grow grapes: high, dry, hot in the day and cold at night, with late frosts that can take a crop. Tempranillo, which they call Tinta del País here, does something firmer and darker on this plateau than it does in Rioja, and the wines are built accordingly. Under the appellation rules a red must be at least 95 per cent authorised red varieties, with Tempranillo, Tinto Fino or Tinta del País making up at least 75 per cent of the blend.

The Roble and the Reserva make a useful pair. The Roble is the young style, given a little over three months in barrel, which is the legal threshold for the Roble designation and is enough to add a spicy edge without covering the fruit. The Reserva has had years in barrel and then in bottle before the winery will release it, and it is the one to open when you want the region's more serious face. Neither is a trophy bottle and neither pretends to be. Both are well made and honestly priced for what Ribera del Duero usually costs. Above them sit the Secreto and the top Viña Mayor bottlings.