There is a long tradition of wine growing in the Vidal family.
Thanks to
this, that the young generation can work with huge number of vines. All
in all, there are 42 hectares planted with
vines. 
They are a hundred percent
owned by the family, which makes it easier to control growing and
harvesting, yield, and all kinds of activities in the
vineyards.Theoretically, about 400,000 kilogram of grapes could be
harvested in Vidal's own vineyards. But doing so would lead directly
to the opposite of the Vidal's philosophy. The maximum yield is
about 5,000 kilogram or 3,500 litre per hectare for the white wine and
about 4,000 kilogram or 2,800 litre per hectare for the red wine.
The vineyards are mostly situated in the area of the village of La Seca. Some are between La Seca and Tordesillas, a few kilometers up to the north. The most important single-vineyards are Pagos Varrastrojuelos, Pago Valdechimoza, and La Matea, each within La Seca. The oldest Verdejo vines - up to seventy years old - can be found there. Nearly all of the vines are trained in the classical castillian bush-style. In the oldest vineyards there is a plant density of about thousand vines per hectare. The majority of the vines are planted 1,5x3,0 meters apart which results in about 2,500 vines per hectare. The yield is restricted to three kilogram per plant.
One of the most recently
planted vineyards is called Pago Camino La Peña.
It was planted
in 1984 with Tinta Fina vines. The plants came from Pedrosa de Duero,
vineyards in downtown Ribera del Duero. Alicia Vidal always
attaches great importance to not calling it Tempranillo but Tinta Fina.
This single vineyard which delivers the grapes for the
Viña Clavidor Tinto, is also trained in the classical
bush-style.
This kind of training makes machine-working much more complicated than the so-called modern style of planting. In Rueda the use of chemicals is not as important as it is in other regions of Spain. Thanks to the altitude - about 700 meters above the sea level - and to the continental climate, diseases of the vine are rare. Harvesting is done by hand during the night. This is a speciality hardly found in other wineries of Castilla-León. Well, neither harvesting by hand nor harvesting at night is in itself worthy of interest but the combination of two is really difficult to handle. Floodlighting and power supply has to be installed around the next vineyard to be harvested. Harvesting starts at four o‘clock in the morning when temperature is at its lowest level. Because of the short distances between the vineyards and the winery, the grapes can be processed at a low temperature. Another advantage is that the level of acidity is a little bit higher in the early morning than late in the afternoon.
About 27 of the 42 hectares are
planted with Verdejo, the most important grape variety of Rueda. Ten
hectares are planted with Tinta Fina, and the remainder with Viura.
Actually, not all of the grapes are vinified in the winery. A
percentage of
the grapes is vinified but sold as bulk wine to other
wineries within the D.O. Rueda. There is a huge demand for
high quality grapes in the
area. In the long run, all of the grapes
harvested by Bodegas Vidal Soblechero will be vinified in their own
winery and will be sold under their own brand names. But there is
still a long way to go. About 140.000 bottles of the 2007 vintage were
produced.