WINERY BACKGROUND

Compañía Vitivinícola Tandem was founded in January 2003 by Alicia Eyaralar, José María Fraile and a small group of family and friends that share a love of wine.

Tandem means, in Latin, “at last” and represents the ambition that the two founding partners have always had to realize our dream and mission. Our mission is, through hard-work and dedication, to make the best wines we possibly can and to ensure Tandem becomes a benchmark of quality in the Navarra DO. The winery is a very modern building built partially underground in the Navarran countryside of oak forests and cereal fields. North facing, Tandem is built entirely of concrete to give a natural feel and to maintain an optimum temperature for the making and ageing of wine.

Winemaking in two stories allows us to avoid the use of pumps at racking. The prominent skylight at the front of the winery beams its light out on to the valley at night recreating the traditional Pilgrims route custom whereby churches and hermitages lit up their towers to attract pilgrims on their way to Santiago.

THE VINEYARDS

Pedro Jesús and Angel Lizarraga (father and son) are our viticulture partners. Their 22 hectares of vineyards in the Yerri Valley provide the basis of Tandem’s quality mission. These 22 hectares are divided equally between Tempranillo, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. The vines are on average 20 years old and are managed in exemplary fashion.

The combination of loam/clay soils, a favorable micro-climate within a severe continental climate, the right amount of rainfall and an altitude of 600 meters, all make for very healthy fruit in all the weather conditions that we have encountered up until now. The vines are not irrigated which ensures a better expression of terroir in our wines.

Our philosophy is simple: to make great wines we need great fruit. We therefore work very hard in the vineyards all year round. Pedro and Angel personally work the vines with Alicia’s supervision and spare no effort or expense in getting the best out of each vintage. Pruning, flowering, green harvesting as and when required and as many times as required etc.

VINIFICATION

Valle de Yerri being at the northern area of the Appellation Navarra, has a very continental weather favored with cool summer nights allowing a slow ripening and therefore good balance on the fruit. The alcoholic and phenolic ripening is better and more complex. Balance between alcohol and acidity allow Tandem wines to be very fresh. Distance from our estates to the winery is very short, just 7 km. Grapes arrive to the winery in small trailers of 5000 kg. Winemaking takes place on two levels: on the upper level, fermentation takes place in stainless steel tanks fitted with arms for pigeage which help to slowly and softly extract the best quality juice from the grape through cap plunging .

This method allows us to produce elegant, classy wines. The wines are then gravity fed to the lower level cement tanks covered with epoxy where malolactic fermentation is spontaneously performed. When finished the wines rest before ageing in barrel. For us concrete provides the ideal conditions in which to store wine, the wines fine naturally. Our wines do not go through cold stabilization. Furthermore we do not filter them ensuring that they reach the market in the best condition possible. In our bid for optimum quality, we age our wines in 300 liter French oak barrels which are renewed every three to four years.