El Pecado is made by Bodegas y Viedos Ral Prez from one of the most spectacular vineyards in the world in the Ribeira Sacra DO region. This wine is a masterpiece and is perhaps Ral’s finest wine, not because of Ral but because of the vineyard. This is precisely why Ral is such a gifted and inspiring winemaker. Ral is secure enough in his ego that he would rather show the place than his winemaking technique or his personality. In any given vintage, Ral can extract all the virtues of a place and leave behind the defects. Ral Prez is one of Spains finest winemakers and some wine trade veterans believe Ral is among a handful of the best winemakers in the world. Ral believes great wines are made in the vineyard and he has an uncanny knack for knowing what his vineyards need to achieve their greatest potential. As his virtuoso winemaking talent has become known, many winemakers now seek to collaborate with Raul. During Roman times, Ribera Sacras district of Amandi was filled with gold mines. Once the gold was gone, the Romans planted vineyards on these steep slopes. The slaves had to work so hard on the 65 gradient slopes they called this area “hell.” El Pecado (‘The Sin’) is Raul’s way of communicating a forgotten piece of Roman slave history. If you love DRCs La Tache but hate the price, try El Pecado.

Produced by Ral Prez in the Ribeira Sacra, it is a single-variety wine made of menca grapes from vineyards of around one hundred years old, planted in one of the steep terraces of the Sil river canyon in slate and granite soil. With a manually executed harvest, the wine vinification process is carried out in the traditional way: stepping on the grapes and fermentation with indigenous yeasts from the same vineyard. The wine is aged for a year in oak barrels.