HOTEL

The magnificent Palace was built in Herrerian style and preserves its exterior architecture and original proportions. The central balcony is surrounded by 2 coats of arms of the nobility families Lerma and Medinaceli. Nowadays it has been converted into a Posada Real (Royal Inn) and offers 18 rooms open to the guests of the Ribera del Duero.

WINERY

The grape reception area has been positioned at the top of the winery so that the must from the destemmed and pressed grapes reaches the vats by gravity. The alcoholic fermentation and maceration processes are carried out in self-emptying 30,000-litre stainless steel vats, six of which are of the submerged cap type due to the fact that they have a special structure that keeps the marcs in constant contact with the liquid, thus enabling the extraction of the phenolic compounds. The fermentation temperature is controlled automatically by means of a new system called "Enocontrol", which allows programming of the cold curves for each vat by a computer as well as recording said curves as graphs. After the alcoholic fermentation, the marcs are separated from the wine. The devatted wine is transferred to 56,000-litre stainless steel vats and the marcs are pressed. In these vats, the malolactic fermentation is carried out at 20-22ºC. Once this fermentation has finished, the premises are cooled by natural means to produce the precipitation of the sediment. The winery also has blending vats: 4 of 95,000 litres and 2 of 150,000 litres, fitted with stirrers for carrying out the blending of the wines.

The wines are tasted to classify them for elaboration as joven, crianza or reserva wines. Once their most appropriate destination has been decided, depending on their characteristics, they are blended and transferred into these vats. Once the wine has been blended, it is aged in casks. All the wines in the winery spend shorter or longer periods of time in casks, depending on the type of wine.

The ageing cellar has 6,000 225-litre American oak casks. The cellar can hold up to 15,000 casks due to the beehive-type scantling, which enables safe storage of up to nine rows, respecting the integrity of the casks due to the fact that they do not support the weight of those above as in other scantling systems. A cask washing line is currently being installed in the winery. This will make it possible to control each of the casks by means of microchips fitted to the cask to tell us its age, type, wines it has contained, etc. so that we may apply the emptying, washing and filling that is most appropriate to each cask.

As a complement to this ageing in the cask, the wine is transferred to French Nevers oak vats. The winery has 11, 21,000-litre vats in which the wine takes on its personal character due to the compounds lent by this type of wood. After it has been aged in the wood, the wine is bottled. The bottles rest horizontally on metal scantling to ensure the perfect evolution of the wine during the time it ages in the bottle.The length of time it spends in the bottle depends on the different types of wine. Together with the cask and vat cellar, the bottle cellar has ideal temperature and humidity conditions that are constant the whole year round, achieved by the winery being half-underground.

VINEYARD

Real Sitio de Ventosilla has 520 hectares of vineyard where the vines grow using the espalier system and drip feed irrigation. The plantation, which was started in 1989, is divided into areas separated into terrains which are in turn split up into plots, each of which has been planted with a different clone. Thus, in terrains such as Hoyo Dornajo, La Mina, Prado del Rey, El Pino, Los Robles, Valdelayegua or Salgüero work is carried out with eleven different clones of one single variety. This work has included the recuperation o,f Tinto Fino vines that are over one hundred years old; this variety takes up 90% of the vineyard. Other varieties grown on the estate are Cabernet Sauvignon, which takes up 7% of the plantation, and Merlot, which takes up 3%. The estate has a surface area of 3,000 hectares. Within the boundaries of the estate, the vineyard also shares 520 hectares with other types of farming, including the growing of corn, sheep and cattle breeding and the great hunting reserve of the surrounding hills. There is also a small electric power station driven by the water of the River Duero, which flows through the estate for some seven kilometres. However, the plantation of the vineyard is what has made the Real Sitio de Ventosilla winery an example of how to make the most of the soil available in accord with the microclimate, height above sea level, composition and vineyard variety to obtain perfect adaptation to the terrain and get all the potential from the fruit.