ENGAGEMENT

“A society grows well when people plant trees whose shade they know they will never enjoy.”

Greek Proverb

Ossian

Winegrowing heritage

Nieva, Segovia

Conocimiento

Genuine old vine

At Ossian we perpetuate a legacy that goes back five centuries. We work to maintain and recover centenary vineyards that were not decimated by phylloxera, in a land of privileged soils and an extreme climate that marks the character of the ancestral and authentic verdejo.

We would not understand how to work this type of pre-phylloxera vineyard in any other way than organically. We observe and learn from the ecosystem to seek a natural balance between man, the environment and the vine, paying tribute to vines that are a viticultural heritage.

Between seas of pine forests located in the Segovian countryside, the hawthorns take root in sandy soils and slate tongues. These are poor soils that force the vines to give their best in extreme climatic conditions. Most of the grapes are very old, with vines that are almost two centuries old and have seen several generations of winegrowers. Our job is to immortalize this heritage by obtaining a fruit that will last in the memory.

Natural resistance to phylloxera

Sandy matrix
Most of our vineyards in and around Nieva are rooted in sandy matrix soils. The pine forest soil becomes not only a geographical reference but also a key feature for the historical preservation of the vines that grew here.

A natural defense
This was key for the phylloxera plague of the late 19th century to barely affect the Nieva vineyard: the larvae of the insect cannot thrive in the sandy texture. Thanks to this natural defense, today we find here ungrafted vines, that is, vines that predate phylloxera.

Tierra
pizarra

The soils

Two eras converge in the countryside of northern Segovia. The Paleozoic materials, formed 500 million years ago, meet the Tertiary soils, which date back 25 million years.

An indissoluble past that conditions the character of our varietal. Two geologies from different periods that emerge on surfaces that are also very different in appearance, composition and influence. The Ossian vines were planted in a free-standing system, their roots penetrate very deeply into the soil, developing a complete root system that ultimately contributes to greater balance and expressiveness in the wines.

A Cambrian slate tongue surrounds the village of Santa María la Real de Nieva. These are very ancient materials, and it is on these that the plots from which the Capitel grapes come from are settled. A singular minerality, angular and cold, is manifested in this wine born from the brown layers of schist.

The weather

A demanding environment
At an average altitude of 900 meters above sea level, even exceeding 1,000 meters in some plots, conditions are extreme. Even for vines that have seen decades of growth. During the winter temperatures reach temperatures of up to fifteen degrees below zero, which contrasts with dry and hot summers, which exceed thirty degrees Celsius on a recurring basis.

Contrasts that mark the character
The snows, which visit us frequently in the coldest seasons, cover the seas of pine forests and vineyards, giving them a magical aspect. The summer, on the other hand, subjects the vines to intense but balanced water stress. All these characteristics further condition the marked varietal character of our wines.