Case of Loseco 2024 | $36.00 per bottle

$36.00 per bottle | $432.00 case of 12

Grape Varieties: 60% Viura, 40% Verdejo
Region: La Seca, Castilla y León, Spain
Appellation: VT Castilla y León
Producer: Barco del Corneta
Alcohol: 12.5%
pH: 3.27
Production: 6,000 bottles, bottled March 2025
Drink: 2025–2031

The Origin: Thirty or forty years ago the wineries of La Seca poured a blend of Viura and Verdejo as their everyday wine. The two grapes grew side by side in the same vineyards and they worked together — and then the blend fell out of use as the region went all in on Verdejo alone. Loseco is that village wine brought back, from fruit grown in La Seca itself. Viura carries the minerality and the weight across the mouth; Verdejo brings the acidity and the length. The proportions move every year with the season and the yields — in 2024, 60% Viura to 40% Verdejo.

The Profile: Fresh and direct on the surface with real depth underneath, and a line of salt and citrus pith running through all of it — the signature of the limestone that sits beneath La Seca's sand and stones. 12.5% alcohol and a pH of 3.27 keep everything taut. Bottled unfined and unfiltered, so a faint haze in the glass is signature rather than fault. 94 points from Luis Gutiérrez in The Wine Advocate, who closed his note: "I'm very impressed." The estate is a little surprised too: Loseco was designed to be fresh, fluid and simple, and it came out of the bottle more complex than intended — which Félix Crespo credits to the quality of the plots rather than to anything done in the cellar.

The Craft: The Verdejo was fermented and aged in stainless steel. So was most of the Viura — except for eight or nine barrels of it that went into oak the year the cellar ran out of tank space, which worked well enough that the estate now does it deliberately. Roughly eight to nine months before blending and bottling, unfined and unfiltered. 6,000 bottles, bottled March 2025 — that is the world's entire supply.

The Pairing: Serve at 8–10°C, and give it twenty minutes out of the fridge — it closes up when it is too cold. Oysters, clams and grilled white fish are the obvious road; the more interesting one is salt cod, jamón, a young sheep's or goat's cheese, or a roast chicken with lemon. Drinking well now and through 2031.