Vino de Paraje

What Does It Mean for Zumaquero to Be a Vino de Paraje?

A Vino de Paraje is a wine that comes from a specific place. In other words, it is a Single-Vineyard Site Wine.

It is not made from grapes gathered from different parts of an appellation. Instead, it comes from vineyards located within a defined, recognized and protected geographical site.

Within the Bierzo Designation of Origin, the term Vino de Paraje may only be used when 100% of the grapes come from the site named on the label. In addition, the maximum permitted vineyard yield is reduced by 25% compared with the general limit established for the appellation.

Zumaquero comes from La Grisuela (that is the Single-Vineyard Site name), in Cubillos del Sil.

That is why we do not simply speak of a wine from Bierzo. We speak of a wine connected to a precise place, with its own vineyards, aspect, landscape and particular way of interpreting each vintage.

Our label identifies this origin as:

Vino de Paraje · La Grisuela · Cubillos del Sil

This way of understanding wine connects Bierzo with some of the world’s great wine regions:

In Burgundy, wines are identified by their climats. In Germany, the VDP classifies its finest vineyard sites. In Barolo and Barbaresco, wines can be associated with officially delimited MGAs. In Alsace, the Grands Crus correspond to distinctive, precisely defined terroirs.

They all share the same essential belief: the more precisely we understand where a wine comes from, the better we can understand its identity.

Being a Vino de Paraje is not an abstract promise or a marketing expression. It is a declaration of origin, a commitment to traceability and a way of defending the belief that wine begins long before the grapes reach the winery.

Zumaquero does not seek to represent the whole of Bierzo. It seeks to tell, bottle by bottle, the story of La Grisuela.