Dominio de Es

Dominio de Es: the purity of Soria’s Duero according to Bertrand Sourdais

Dominio de Es is one of the most personal, scarce and exciting projects in today’s Ribera del Duero. It was born from the vision of Bertrand Sourdais, a French vigneron from Chinon, on an extreme and silent landscape: the Soria area of Ribera del Duero, a land of old vines, altitude, cold, poor soils and an identity very different from the better-known Ribera of Burgos or Valladolid.

In the late 1990s, Sourdais arrived in Soria and discovered an exceptional wine heritage: bush vines, pre-phylloxera vineyards planted at more than 950 metres above sea level. These ancient vines, many of them long forgotten, revealed a finer, more mineral and more austere Ribera del Duero, capable of producing wines of enormous beauty without excess.

Bertrand Sourdais: a French vigneron in love with Soria

Bertrand Sourdais comes from Chinon, in the Loire Valley, where his family has been dedicated to vineyards and wine for five generations. His training and experience took him through great estates such as Château Léoville Las Cases, Château Mouton Rothschild and work alongside Álvaro Palacios in Priorat and Chile, before he arrived in Ribera del Duero.

Between 1999 and 2010, he was co-founder and technical director of Dominio de Atauta, a key project in giving value to the old vineyards of the eastern area of Ribera del Duero, in the province of Soria. After that stage, he decided to continue exploring this landscape from an even more intimate and personal perspective: Dominio de Es.

A project born in 2011

Dominio de Es officially began with the 2011 vintage. From the very beginning, it was born with a vigneron philosophy: working few plots, caring for each vine, making wine with precision and keeping production very limited. This is not a winery designed for volume, but to express a specific idea of beauty, place and time.

In the best vintages, total production barely reaches around 15,000 bottles, which explains why these wines are so difficult to find. They are cult bottles, sought after by collectors, sommeliers and lovers of great Spanish wines.

San Esteban de Gormaz and Atauta: a different Ribera

Dominio de Es is located around San Esteban de Gormaz and Atauta, in the easternmost part of the Ribera del Duero D.O. This Soria area has a very distinct personality: high altitude, cold climate, slow ripening and a combination of sandy, limestone and clay soils that bring tension, freshness and minerality.

Here, the Duero is not expressed through immediate power, but through silent depth. Cold, altitude and vine age allow finer, more vertical and longer-lived wines to be made, with an elegance that sometimes recalls Burgundian or Bordeaux sensitivity, but with a soul that is completely Sorian.

Pre-phylloxera vines, bush training and altitude

The heart of Dominio de Es lies in its old vines. They are bush-trained, many of them pre-phylloxera, planted at altitude and cared for almost individually. The combination of age, low production and poor soils makes it possible to obtain grapes of great natural concentration, but also great balance.

The vineyard is divided into micro-plots, each with its own identity. Spanish Wine Lover notes that the project is built around small plots in Atauta, with names such as La Diva, La Mata, Valdegatiles, Llanos del Almendro and Camino Olmillos, and with a highly plot-based vision of the territory.

Tinto Fino and Albillo: the historical essence of the Duero

Dominio de Es works mainly with Tinto Fino, the local adaptation of Tempranillo in Ribera del Duero, together with the presence of Albillo. This combination reflects the historical reality of many old vineyards in the area, where varieties coexisted in the same landscape before modern viticulture tended to simplify vineyards.

Tinto Fino brings structure, fruit, depth and energy. Albillo, meanwhile, can add freshness, texture and a finer dimension to the whole. In Bertrand Sourdais’ hands, these varieties are not understood as recipes, but as tools to translate the exact character of each plot.

Biodynamics, organic farming and the domaine concept

Dominio de Es is inspired by the French concept of domaine: growing, vinifying, ageing, bottling and selling from the same estate, with a direct relationship between the vigneron and the wine. Bodeboca’s profile notes that the project works organically and that the winery understands time as an essential factor in ageing.

Coalla’s profile also describes cultivation following a biodynamic ideology, with high-altitude vineyards, sandy soils and low yields resulting from the age of the vines.

A new winery in San Esteban de Gormaz

In 2025, Dominio de Es began a new stage with the opening of its own winery in San Esteban de Gormaz. This space was created to accompany patient, precise and serene ageing, faithful to the idea that wine should not be accelerated, but allowed to reach its moment.

The new winery strengthens the independent character of the project. It is not only about having its own facilities, but about controlling every detail of winemaking and ageing so that the wines reach the bottle with maximum precision.

Viñas Viejas de Soria: the gateway to the Dominio de Es universe

Dominio de Es Viñas Viejas de Soria is the central wine of the project and one of the best ways to understand Bertrand Sourdais’ vision. According to Spanish Wine Lover, it comes from vineyards he considers to have premier cru quality within Atauta, mainly on sandy limestone soils.

It is a wine that expresses the finesse of the Soria Duero: red and black fruit, mineral tension, depth, freshness and elegant structure. It does not seek easy strength, but the emotion of a wine that grows with air and time.

La Diva, La Mata and Carravilla: cult wines

La Diva is one of the most mythical and scarce cuvées of Dominio de Es. Spanish Wine Lover indicates that it comes from a small plot located at the end of a narrow valley, with extremely sandy soil over limestone subsoil, and that its production is fewer than 500 bottles.

La Mata and Carravilla belong to that same dimension of single-plot wines, bottles that seek to capture the most precise expression of specific places. These are high-priced, minimal-production wines in huge demand, made for collectors and for those seeking the most singular interpretations of the Soria area of Ribera del Duero.

Time, ageing and the search for beauty

At Dominio de Es, time is a fundamental tool. The wines are not forced or accelerated. They are accompanied. Every decision responds to a search for balance, beauty and precision, allowing the wine to evolve until it reaches its exact moment.

This philosophy explains the style of the winery: deep, fine, mineral and long wines, with a more delicate texture than many people expect from Ribera del Duero. These are wines that require attention, generous glasses and patience.

Expensive, scarce wines with meaning

Dominio de Es is expensive because it works with a completely different logic from a conventional winery. The plots are tiny, the vines are very old, yields are low, production is limited and winemaking is designed to respect the character of each place as much as possible.

That price is not only about fame, but about real scarcity and the enormous attention required by every bottle. Dominio de Es is one of those wineries where value lies in detail: the vine, time, the hand of the vigneron and the singularity of origin.

Wines to cellar, gift and enjoy on great occasions

Dominio de Es wines are perfect for lovers of high-end Ribera del Duero, collectors and people looking for Spanish wines with depth, elegance and ageing potential. These reds are ideal with roast lamb, red meats, game, mushrooms, fine stews, Iberian cured meats, aged cheeses and traditional Castilian dishes.

They are also excellent wines for gifting or cellaring. Because of their scarcity, history and style, every bottle of Dominio de Es has something special: it is not just a wine, but a very personal reading of Soria’s Duero.

Dominio de Es at Coalla Gourmet

At Coalla Gourmet, we select Dominio de Es because it represents one of the finest, rarest and most moving expressions of Ribera del Duero. It is Bertrand Sourdais’ most personal project in Soria, made from pre-phylloxera vines, high-altitude micro-plots and a vigneron sensitivity that understands wine as a dialogue with the land.

Buying Dominio de Es online at Coalla Gourmet means accessing one of the cult wineries of contemporary Spanish wine: limited-production wines with mineral depth, elegance and a real story behind them.

Enjoy Dominio de Es with shipping across mainland Spain, free shipping options according to conditions and the guarantee of a carefully curated gourmet selection.