000009aa6-AALTO_GENERAL_VIEW_AUTUMN.jpg
(Image credit: Credit Unknown)

In less than 16 years, Javier Zaccagnini and Mariano Garcia have achieved their aim – to make a wine in Ribera del Duero equal to the world’s best. Sarah Jane Evans MW meets the duo and discovers the secrets of their success

Aalto: a timeline

1978 Mariano Garcia (above) founds Mauro winery in Castilla y León

1992-1998 Javier Zaccagnini is director of the Consejo Regulador, the regulatory board for Ribera del Duero

000009aa9-AALTO_UNDERGROUND_BARREL_CELLAR.jpg

(Image credit: Credit Unknown)

March 1998 Garcia leaves Vega Sicilia, where he has worked for 30 years

February 1999 Aalto founded, to make two wines: Aalto and, in exceptional years, a small production of PS (Pagos Seleccionados: ‘selected vineyards’)

2000 Planted 12ha in Quintanilla de Arriba, around the site for the winery

2011 First commercial launch of Zaccagnini’s Sei Solo

Next page Previous page

Sarah Jane Evans MW
Sarah Jane Evans MW
Decanter Magazine, Wine Writer, DWWA 2019 Co-Chair

Sarah Jane Evans MW is an award-winning journalist who began writing about wine (and food, restaurants, and chocolate) in the 1980s. She started drinking Spanish wine - Sherry, to be specific - as a student of classics and social and political sciences at Cambridge University. This started her lifelong love affair with the country’s wines, food and culture, leading to her appointment as a member of the Gran Orden de Caballeros de Vino for services to Spanish wine. In 2006 she became a Master of Wine, writing her dissertation on Sherry and winning the Robert Mondavi Winery Award. Currently vice-chairman of the Institute of Masters of Wine, Evans divides her time between contributing to leading wine magazines and reference books, wine education and judging wines internationally.