{"title":"Ismael Gozalo","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn Rueda the distance between the industrial and the artisanal is stark. So many producers are trying to make the next New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc with steel vats, industrial yeasts, and, in many cases, literally some Sauvignon Blanc. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBut Rueda also has real wine. And even a natural wine sensation in Ismael Gozalo. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eGozalo is most decidedly not following the international market trends of his neighbors. Instead, he finds inspiration from the likes of Coche-Dury and Ganevat. Ganevat recognizes like-minded genius: he is Gozalo’s official importer in France! If you met him you might have learned that his project is special not just because of his very natural and traditional approach to farming and winemaking. He also has old vines. Really, really old vines.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eRueda has plenty of sand, one of the few soils that phylloxera can't cross. It survived the late-19th century epidemic better than just about anywhere in Europe and there are still plenty of outrageously old, ungrafted vines that produce true heritage examples of Verdejo. That is Ismael’s raw material, and the youngest of them are 140 years old.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eHe transforms this material into wine by doing as little as possible. Like Coche and Ganevat, he does allow the must (that’s the grape juice before it becomes wine) to be exposed to oxygen, believing that this is key to protecting the wines for long-term aging. Until the mid-1990s or so, that was how white wine was made. Otherwise, Gozalo follows a pretty standard recipe for natural wine, doing virtually nothing aside for occasional flourishes like burying whatever wine does not fit in his barrels in small vats underground.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[],"url":"https:\/\/sf.flatiron-wines.com\/collections\/ismael-gozalo.oembed","provider":"Flatiron SF","version":"1.0","type":"link"}