Pingus

Many people know Pingus and the story of Peter “Ping” Sisseck, a Dane that arrived in Ribera del Duero by chance in the late 1980s and never left. But few know about his environmental mindset. Of course, in Denmark, all that started much earlier than in Spain, and he was an early adopter here. He went to many biodynamic trainings and retreats over a decade ago, and I remember him telling me years ago how they had a very deep impact on him, long before biodynamics became trendy. Like fellow Green Emblem holder Ricardo “Titin” Pérez Palacios from Descendientes de José Palacios in Bierzo, he lives on a biodynamic farm in the middle of the countryside not far from his winery in the village of Quintanilla de Onésimo, where he’s closing the circle by having his own cows to produce his own compost. I’ve known Sisseck since a cold December morning in 1998 when I entered the Hacienda Monasterio winery (his day-job work place) and caught him labeling the 1996 Pingus by hand. He pulled a bottle from the line and popped the cork for us to taste. Since then, I’ve met him and tasted Pingus regularly, and I’ve seen the wine change and the style evolve, no doubt due to Sisseck’s attention to biodynamics and the subsequent changes introduced in how they work the vineyards. The wines have gained precision and focus and jumped up a level or three in quality, which is, at the end of the day, the objective and very relevant to me. The times when being organic justified poor wines are long gone.

Dominio de Pingus, which our own Robert Parker discovered for the world in the initial 1995 vintage, is the brainchild of Danish winemaker Peter Sisseck. He studied agronomy in France and had a strong influence from his uncle, Peter Vinding Diers, who kind of revolutionized dry white Bordeaux, and the gang from Saint Emilion lead by Jean-Luc Thunevin (Château Valandraud), who were his drinking buddies. His iconic Pingus has seen an evolution that exemplifies what has been happening in Spain in the last three decades, going from 120% new oak in 1995 to 0% new oak in 2018. More recently, he has gone into a joint venture with Carlos del Río, the owner of Hacienda Monasterio in Ribera del Duero, purchasing vineyards, a superb solera and an old traditional winery to make a Fino Sherry, as he believes Fino is the greatest white wine in Spain and in the world. Their project in Jerez de la Frontera is called Bodega San Francisco Javier. And yes, you guessed it correctly, the vineyards were immediately turned to organic farming, and they will eventually be converted to biodynamic too.