Guillermo Díez Rodríguez has fostered a certain curiosity about the world of wine since childhood, when he used to watch his grandfather making wine in a small ancient subterranean bodega using old barrels. Over time he has become the author of a range of internationally highly-acclaimed wines under DO Toro, a success which is also due to his marketing efforts abroad, in view of the fact that he has travelled the world signing the praises of his ‘Carodorum’.

“I was brought up among vines and I’ve seen their grapes grow and ripen since childhood. My parents own vineyards and we’ve always taken care of them”, Guillermo Díez stated, whose desire to make wines in his homeland made him, at the tender age of 19, the youngest oenologist under DO Toro. “With my first wines, of which I still have a few bottles, I was looking for singularity, although they resembled the wines made in the region at that time”, he explained harking back to 2003, his first harvest, which produced only 2,000 kilos of grapes.

It was in that very same year when the family decided to create the Carmen Rodríguez Méndez bodega, using their mother’s name. “We started off in a building of about 200 m2. It was a cosy little bodega where we had all the technology fit for a grand bodega, which we adapted to our size. We had 3,000-litre stainless steel vats and 40 French oak barrels from different cooperages” Díez reminisced.

Two years later, while he was still studying, Guillermo produced his first 8,500 kilos of grapes with which he made ‘Carodorum’, a Latin word which means ‘golden hope’. “I only made 1,300 bottles of wine aged 9 months in French oak. The result was excellent, the wine really made an impact due to its uniqueness, it was a Toro wine but tamed, round, easy to drink, and with the structure, body and colour which characterise the wines from the region”, the oenologist stated. In 2006 the family increased the bodega to 500 m2. “I still have my 3,000-litres vats but I now have better facilities although I believe that the secret of a great wine is in the grapes and in the hands of those who tend them”.

Over the following years, Guillermo Díez continued to investigate by using different wood types and cooperages in order to obtain greater personality in his wines, and also started to market his wines abroad. “The 2004 vintage was the first we presented to prestigious critic Robert Parker and, to my great surprise, my wines were recognised as some of the best from Toro. I’m also proud of the Silver Medal we won that year in the German competition, Mundus Vini. I’ve been making my wines for six years now, and always with the desire of improving with every vintage.”

One of Carodorum’s primordial characteristics is its viticulture. The entire vineyard is owned by the family, the grapes, the Tinta de Toro variety, are tasted in situ in order to ascertain the optimum harvest time, and are collected in 15-kilo crates. A second filter takes place on the selection table when the grapes reach the bodega. Afterwards, they are transferred to 3,000-litre vats, although the grapes from every vineyard each have their own individual vats.