The Paso-Primero Story.

From Shrewsbury to somontano.

Our story begins in our hometown of Shrewsbury, a small county town in the heart of the English countryside. It’s not exactly at the forefront of global wine production but it is the home of Tanners Wine Merchants, one of the UK’s most prestigious wine retailers. That’s where we first met and where we both fell in love with wine. The start of two beautiful relationships.

With a burgeoning love of wine and a keen sense of adventure we left Tanners to travel the world and realise the dream of becoming winemakers in our own right. Looking back, what followed was a bit of a whirlwind but it was incredibly exciting and we had a fantastic time. New Zealand was first on the world tour with two vintages at Pask winery in Hawke’s Bay. This was followed by three vintages at Flat Rock Cellars in Ontario, Canada. It’s hard to explain just how important these stops were and how lucky we were to find cellars that were welcoming and keen to help us develop as winemakers. Without their encouragement we’d never have felt able to set off on our own but in 2014, that’s exactly what we did.

We had always wanted to make wine in the ‘old world’ and, for us, Spain was top of the list. Leaving Canada meant taking a leap into the unknown though. We had nothing to go on other than the confidence of youth and a steadfast belief that the next chapter in our story would work out. The first thing we had to do was find a winery who shared our passion for wines and wanted to help us realise our ambition. That wasn’t going to be easy but we believed in ourselves and set off looking for opportunities to create our first wine.

We had targeted a region in northern Spain called Somontano as our first port of call but after a shaky start we were beginning to get nervous. We booked one final meeting before we were due to leave and finally the stars aligned.

That meeting was with Batan de Salas, a young, family run winery who were able to see our winemaking vision and shared our passion for great wines. From that cautious first encounter they have become firm friends and a key part of our lives as well as our careers. Together we’ve revitalised vineyards, won international awards and created a portfolio of wines that we never thought possible. They’ve pushed us, supported us and shared in our successes. It’s extraordinary to think of how far we’ve come and still be looking to the future but we believe there is so much more to come and the story has plenty more chapters to go.