In little more than eleven years, Pago de los Capellanes has reached the podium reserved for Ribera del Duero’s greatest bodegas, a sphere dominated by the region’s oldest wineries, such as Vega Sicilia or Alejandro Fernández. In this short time the Rodero – Villa family have earned the reputation of serious winemakers; producers that are committed to the terroir and to making great quality wines that are acknowledged both at home and abroad.

At the outset of its maturing phase, Pago de los Capellanes has become a bodega of distinction, in a more modern style under DO Ribera del Duero. The Rodero – Villa partnership, together with an exceptional team, which boasts oenologist Francisco Casas, and advocates a very singular way of understanding wine, have managed to transform an estate of scarcely a few thousand goblet pruned vines into their very own, over 100 hectares, personal vineyard. The majority of the vines that surround the bodega are in trellises; a creation by Jesús Manzanares, who has also left his mark on bodegas such as Enate, under DO Somontano, and Álvaro Palacios, under DO Priorato.

Pago de los Capellanes is an area located less than a kilometre from Pedrosa de Duero, a village in Burgos where some of the very best grapes in the whole of Ribera are harvested, and where, during the Middle Ages, a chaplaincy was founded. In due course, the chaplains (capellanes) of Pedrosa were able to accumulate land the size of a municipal district but with the arrival of the ‘desamortización de Mendizábal (1855)’; the church land was auctioned off into the hands of the local authorities. Despite this change, its inhabitants still chose to call the locality Pago de los Capellanes, literally the area belonging to the chaplains.

This modern and functional bodega’s foundation stone was laid in1996, although the vineyard belonged to the family long before that, fuelling their dream of having their own bodega since 1980.

Pago de los Capellanes combines different varieties such as Tempranillo (80 percent), Cabernet Sauvignon (10 percent) and Merlot (10 percent). All of them subject to strict production controls. In fact, only 5,000 kilograms are collected per hectare, well under the 7,000 mark stipulated by DO Ribera del Duero’s Regulating Council. This factor, together with the personal monitoring of every batch bottled, are just two examples of the standard of quality carried out at this bodega. A quality that can be seen in the bodega’s complete range of wines that bear their hallmark on today’s market. Reds with a very individual potential; the combined result of tranquillity, care and patience.