Case of Cucú 2025 | $33.00 per bottle

Grape Varieties: 100% Verdejo
Region: La Seca and Segovia, Castilla y León, Spain
Appellation: VT Castilla y León
Producer: Barco del Corneta
Viticulture: Certified organic
Alcohol: 13%
pH: 3.46
Production: 80,000 bottles, bottled March 2026
Drink: 2026–2031

The Origin: Cucú is the widest net the estate casts. Where Loseco is a village wine from La Seca and the flagship Barco del Corneta comes from a single paraje, Cucú draws on certified organic vineyards in both La Seca and Segovia — a regional wine in the proper sense, and the reason 80,000 bottles of it exist against 6,000 of the Loseco. The two sources do different jobs: La Seca brings the limestone character the village is known for, while the Segovia plots sit higher and colder.

The Profile: Young and clean, and precise in a way inexpensive Verdejo rarely is. Fresh-cut grass and citrus lead, then the varietal signature arrives properly: a classical bitter twist on the finish, the thing that separates real Verdejo from the tropical, sweet-edged version the grape usually gets turned into. Tasty and bright, 13% alcohol, pH 3.46. 92+ points from Luis Gutiérrez in The Wine Advocate.

The Craft: All Verdejo, all certified organic. Roughly 10% of the wine is fermented in used 300-litre barrels and left to mature there on its lees until bottling — done, in the producer's terms, for complexity and unctuousness: it puts a little texture under a wine that would otherwise be all edge. 80,000 bottles, bottled in March 2026.

The Pairing: Serve at 8–10°C. Grilled shrimp, ceviche, oysters and white fish are the easy answers. The more useful one is the bitter finish, which lets this handle the vegetables that defeat most white wine — asparagus, artichoke, grilled green peppers — alongside a fresh goat's cheese. Drinking now through 2031.