Serious wine enthusiasts may know of the cult winery Pingus, just outside the beautiful city of Valladolid. It’s a 20-minute drive from the city. We were lucky enough to get a peek at this small Spanish winery with impressive R&D facilities.
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| Pingus wines |
Extremely private, bordering on secretive, the Pingus winery usually doesn’t accept visitors and they produce wines in such small batches that these wines are very hard to get.
You must often begin your search for a bottle of Pingus way in in advance and you must be prepared to wait for one for a very long time, as most bottles rarely make it even into the finest wine stores.
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| The Pingus winery near Valladolid |
The Pingus winery doesn’t even have a sign, and the winery looks just like a regular village house. Mara, our private guide, said: “There’s no sign. But everyone in the know knows that this is the Pingus winery.”
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| The Pingus winery near Valladolid |
Pingus achieved cult status when one of the Pingus vintages became the first ever Spanish wine to receive 100 points from wine critic Robert Parker. I can understand why as these are very exclusive (and pretty expensive) boutique wines made with a combination of feeling and scientific winemaking data. For a very small winery, they have incredible state-of-the-art equipment.
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| Yulya, the Russian winemaker at Pingus winery |
Yesterday, we drove over for a private visit — a very rare occurrence in this winery. We met with Yulya, the Pingus winemaker, who happens to be a Russian who studied wine making in Moscow and then went on to more wine-making studies in the Loire Valley and in Bordeaux. This Russian connection certainly gave the meeting a warm feeling.
After talking about wine and visiting the Pingus cellars, we spent the afternoon doing wine tastings straight out of the barrel, living and loving a #Travelife.
