# Pampaneo Airén Natural (2024)

- **Producer:** Esencia Rural
- **Colour:** orange
- **Type:** still
- **Grapes:** Airén
- **Region:** Castilla-La Mancha, Spain
- **Style:** Natural
- **Alcohol:** 12.5%
- **Average price:** €14
- **Vegan:** Yes
- **Contains sulphites:** Yes
- **When to drink:** Now or Later
- **Serving temperature:** 10–12 °C
- **Aromas & flavours:** peach, orange, fennel, rose, bread, cheese, marmalade, hay, dried apricot

## About this wine

Pampaneo Airén Natural is produced by Bodega Esencia Rural, located in Quero, Toledo, within Castilla-La Mancha, Spain. Winemaker Julián Ruiz Villanueva, often regarded as a pioneer of natural skin-contact winemaking in Central Spain, transitioned from growing organic vegetables to tending his family's ancient vines in 1998. The estate relies on dry-farmed, unmechanized vineyards containing pre-phylloxera ungrafted bush vines up to 140 years old. Resisting modern industrial practices, Esencia Rural preserves local viticultural heritage by rehabilitating native grapes and maintaining low-intervention ancestral winemaking methods.

## Interesting facts

- Winemaker Julián Ruiz was an organic melon and saffron farmer before focusing on natural wine in 1998.
- Sourced from pre-phylloxera ungrafted bush vines, some of which are over 140 years old.
- Transforms Airén, historically used for bulk wine and brandy, into a renowned skin-contact wine.

## Food pairing

Skin-contact orange wines balance tactile skin tannins, vibrant acidity, and savory complexity. This structural dual-nature allows them to cut through rich animal fats like roasted pork while matching aromatic spices and hard sheep's milk cheeses.

## Wine making process

Hand-harvested from low-yielding bush vines planted in sandy-calcareous soils at 700 meters elevation. The grapes undergo 100% destemming followed by spontaneous alcoholic fermentation with wild yeasts in stainless steel tanks. Skin maceration continues for two to four months depending on the lot. After gentle pressing, spontaneous malolactic fermentation occurs. The wine matures for two months in traditional earthenware clay jars (tinajas / amphorae) before being bottled by gravity without fining, filtration, or added sulfites.