3 Ases Joven 2024

The story of Vinícola La Calera began in 2008 when business partners Javier del Blanco and César Arranz founded 3 Ases Vinos in Ribera del Duero. They initially bought grapes and rented space in a winery to produce their wines. Later, they bought their own winery and a 3-hectare plot of Tempranillo. After splitting from their capital partners—who wanted to scale up and become more commercial —they focused on small production, fresh, and expressive wines. They now produce two wines: 3 Ases and Pico del Castro, both from a single plot planted in 1989. Located in Quintanilla de Arriba, the vineyard sits on loamy, limestone soils in Ribera del Duero. The vineyard is farmed organically (certification in progress), with no herbicides, and uses cover crops to improve soil and prevent erosion. The 3 Ases is a fresh take on Ribera del Duero, made exclusively in stainless steel to preserve the grape’s fruit character. It’s light and crunchy with notes of cranberry, strawberry, and white pepper. Pico del Castro is a more traditional Tempranillo, aged briefly in old French oak. It offers rich flavours of blackberries, liquorice, and smokiness. They’ve recently acquired 100-year-old dry-farmed vines and plan to produce a tiny batch wine from this site—only 500 to 1000 bottles!

In this vintage, the grapes come from two north-facing plots in Peñafiel, both planted on limestone soils. Sourcing fruit from cooler sites within the DO, combined with an early harvest, is essential to achieving this style of wine.

The vines, planted in 1997 sit at 750 metres above sea level in a continental climate. Grapes were hand-harvested. Following 21 hours of skin contact, fermentation took place spontaneously using a pied de cuve and indigenous yeasts in a single stainless-steel tank, lasting seven days at 22°C. Malolactic fermentation was completed in the same tank to enhance fruit expression. The wine was cold-settled over the winter and bottled in December 2025.

This wine aims to revive a style that has fallen out of favour in Ribera del Duero: a youthful Tempranillo with no barrel ageing, designed to express the purity of the grape alongside the character of our limestone soils and the climatic conditions of the vintage.

Surprisingly light on its feet and delicate. Lesser in alcohol, in tannin and as such in body than Pico del Castro. This is an unoaked, fresh, subtle Ribera del Duero with heaps of cranberries, summer fruits and blackcurrent. A touch of pepper and spice on the finish.

Charcuterie, roast chicken, turkey and cranberry

Ribera del Duero is located in the northwest of the country, about two hours north of Madrid, in the center of Castilla y León - Spain’s largest state. Ribera del Duero runs from the east of Aranda del Duero west towards Valladolid. Its name translates as riverbanks of the Duero, with the region’s vineyards flanking the Duero River to the north and south, stretching up to the limestone cliffs where the valley intersects with the Meseta Central - a plateau that rises between 700 and 1,000 meters above sea level. Nearly 95 percent of the DO is planted with Tempranillo. Approximately 35 percent of those vines are 25 years old or older, including about 323 hectares of vines that are more than 100 years old. Ribera del Duero has a Mediterranean climate influenced by the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, but the region also experiences a high degree of continentality, marked by long, cold winters and hot, dry summers.