i s t r y
the creation
é n d z L d S i l u i o
Siluvio is the dream of Ladislao Méndez León, ‘Lalo’, and his wife Leticia Sobrino.
Lalo gave free rein to his passion for the world of wine and here he poured all his knowledge of more than 30 years as a wine merchant with his company Méndez Leon.
His latest purpose has been to promote and extol the world of wine, moving to the other side of the sector, creating since 2017 a small vineyard and winery in the South West of Asturias in order to recover the wine tradition that was on the verge of extinction in the Principality of Asturias.
SILUVIO Bodegas y Viñedos is the personal contribution of Lalo and his wife to the Asturian and national history in the wine sector.
THE HISTORY OF EVERYTHING GOES BACK TO THE FAMILY WINE MERCHANT COMPANY, MENDEZ LEON.
Founded by his father, it originally supplied food products to Asturias. When Lalo took the reins of the company, he turned his passion into a profession, and he promoted the sale of wines. Since then, Méndez León has been synonymous with quality and good food, distributing the most prestigious brands in the wine market. The next challenge was to make his own brand with a wine from Asturias for the world, an adventure in which he could put what he had learned over the decades into making his own land grow, in which he believes and whose potential he is well aware of.
In the council of Ibias, located in the extreme south-west is one of the most unique wine growing areas of the Old World. About 60 km south of the Cantabrian Sea and 15 km north of Bierzo, this region is the nucleus of heroic viticulture, a term that describes the production of wine in extreme conditions. This classification, recognized by CERVIM (Center for Research, Study, Safeguard, Coordination and Valorization of Mountain Viticulture), refers to vineyards located on land with more than 30% slope, at altitudes above 500 meters above sea level, and requiring manual cultivation techniques due to the inaccessibility of agricultural machinery.
The project began in 2016 and in 2018 THE WINERY was built, it is a small structure located at the foot of the vineyards, built in the style of a château. The vineyard was initially planted with 40 thousand plants. This winery, built on two levels to take advantage of gravity in the winemaking process, is surrounded by a magical environment that includes hillsides, mountains, landscapes and rivers. This idyllic setting is fundamental for the aging and winemaking process, providing a unique and unrepeatable context for the development of the wine.
tradition
h e h i s t r y o f C a n g a s w i d t e s b a c k t o t h e M i d d l e A g e s ; t h o u s a n d s o f h a n d s h a v e w o r k e d t h e l a n d s i n c e t h e n , p e r p e t u a t i n g a u n i q u e l e g a c y .
Although there are no certainties on the origin of the wine activity in the area of Cangas del Narcea, everything points to the fact that the first vines came from the pious hand of the Cistercian monks of the primitive monastery of Corias, back in the eleventh century. In the middle of the 18th century the vineyard already covered 450 hectares with a production of 180,000 liters of wine, an amount that half a century later would have doubled, according to the Dictionary of Cuisine and Gastronomy of Asturias. At its peak, more than six million vines and 400,000 liters of wine were cultivated.
The activity declined over the centuries and in the seventies and eighties wine production remained almost token, relegated to self-consumption and sale in the ‘chigres’ of the area. The creation of the DO in May 2001 gave way to a new chapter with the commitment to quality as the figurehead of a new era for a wine that has always been made.
