Ossian’s ancient vineyards are located in the village of Nieva in the Spanish province of Segovia. This particular part of Rueda is blessed with a seam of sandy soils that have protected the vines from the dreaded phylloxera louse. The upshot is a wealth of incredibly old vine material which the team at Ossian farm with the sole intention of producing one of Spain’s great white wines. Add in an altitude of around 900m, with the huge diurnal temperature swings that this brings, and you have some very interesting grape material coming off Ossian’s old bush vines. Production methods are fully organic and fully manual – the old bush vines prevent any sort of mechanisation – and ageing takes place in predominantly old French 600L barrels. Both Ossian and Capitel are whole bunch pressed and fermented entirely with wild yeasts. The only grape variety is Verdejo, not generally a grape afforded the chance to reach greatness by others, but here, produced with such a singularity of purpose that the end result is variety defying and capable of serious cellaring. Also in the range is the great value Quintaluna, an amazing 60% of which now comes from pre-phylloxera old vines, and the aforementioned Capitel, produced from a single plot of exceedingly old pre-phylloxera vines grown on a particular patch of sand over slate. These are undoubtedly some of Spain’s most interesting whites.