Peñalba de San Esteban, is to be found at the very Eastern end of the DO Ribera del Duero, at over 900 metres above sea level. This part of the DO is in the province of Soria, and is much less well-known than the rest of the Ribera del Duero appellation. At the heart of this village, with its stone cottages and adobe outbuildings, there is a beautiful Romanesque church. In this high arid plain, a brook lined with poplar and elm winds past the village. Home to vultures and falcons, the scent of lavender and ripe wheat wafts on the breeze across vineyards planted on soils which are a mixture of clay and sand, dotted with irregular-sized pebbles. An excellent "terroir".

The large and productive vineyard plantations of the plains of the Ribera del Duero are no longer to been seen here. This is higher, slightly irregular terrain: a small valley, a hill which separates us from the main area of the Ribera, and on its sides an array of tiny plots of vineyard, some with as few as 50 vines. Almost all of them are over one hundred years old, some even planted before the arrival of Phylloxera and all capable of withstanding this harsh climate.

The climate is tough. Our average annual rainfall is less than 400mm. The sudden autumns soon turn to very cold winters, frost is a common visitor in spring time, but summer is hot with the occasional violent thunderstorm. These wild extremes of temperature affect the vegetative cycle of the plant, reducing yields considerably, but, on the other hand, giving a quality of fruit difficult to achieve in other more productive parts of the Ribera del Duero.