For many decades the Yllera family has been producing high-quality Spanish wines from the finest vineyards of Castilla and Leon, long before the creation of the prestigious D.O. Ribera del Duero in the early 1980s.
In the 1970s, Jesús and Pepe Yllera, two brothers, decided to switch from the estate's historic bulk white wine sales to bottled wines. The illustrious winemaker Ramón Martínez joined the estate in the mid-1980s with the ambition, thanks to his knowledge and experience in winemaking, of elevating it to the pinnacle of the Rioja wine scene.
During this time, the Yllera family acquired the former cooperative winery of Boada de Roa, in the heart of the province of Burgos and thus launched the estate's range of wines.
In their constant quest for excellence, the family decided in the early 2010s to produce a unique and timeless wine that would break away from the codes of Ribera del Duero wines and rival the world's greatest wines. After years of searching for the ideal terroir, the VivaltuS estate was acquired in 2015. This spectacular estate, which won an award at the 2010 Architecture Biennial, is located on the border of the Duero, Cuco and Esgueva valleys.
The VivaltuS estate reigns over a terroir where the old vines are planted at an altitude of around 1000 metres on nutrient-poor, sandy-clay and limestone soils. Considerable work was carried out following this acquisition in order to elaborate, with the help of state-of-the-art vinification tools, an emblematic wine that enhances this exceptional vineyard.
Pure expression of fruit, freshness, tension and length are the common threads throughout the vinifications carried out under the expert eye of the illustrious oenologist Jean Claude Berrouet and his son, Jeff. In this quest for a new interpretation of Ribera del Duero, the 11 to 12-month ageing period in extra-fine French oak barrels precedes a long additional ageing in bottle following blending.
2016 is the first vintage of the Vivaltus estate since its acquisition by the Yllera family.
