Prieto Picudo

Prieto Picudo is a red grape of León, in the high, dry north-west of Castilla y León, and it is best known for a rosé made by a method that exists almost nowhere else. The name describes the fruit: prieto for the dark skin, picudo for the pointed shape of the berry, which grows in tight, compact bunches on a low-vigour vine.

The local speciality is rosado made by the madreo. After pressing, whole unfermented bunches are added back into the fermenting juice, where they break down slowly and release carbon dioxide. The result is a rosé with a genuine natural prickle, deep cherry-pink colour, and a savoury, slightly wild character quite unlike the pale Provençal style that dominates the category. It is bottled young and drunk locally in enormous quantities.

As a red it is darker and firmer than the rosé suggests — blackberry and damp earth, brisk acidity, noticeable tannin and a faintly bitter finish. The high altitude of the León plateau, well over 700 metres, and the wide day-to-night temperature swing keep acidity high even in a hot, continental summer.

The variety nearly disappeared in the twentieth century as growers pulled it out for more commercial options, and much of what survives is old bush vines on sandy, stony soil. The Tierra de León appellation, created in 2007, exists largely to protect it.

It remains a genuinely regional wine. Very little leaves Spain, and the madreo rosé in particular is difficult to find outside the province where it is made.