TASTING GALICIA'S GLORY, WINES!

Wine production in Galicia dates back nearly 2,000 years to the time of Roman occupation. Although the details of those wines are lost to time, today’s offerings are almost entirely white, and, in general, made to be drunk within a year—two maximum—after bottling.

Galicia boasts five denominated wine regions (D.O.s). Rías Baixas, closest to the coast, is the largest and best known of them, where Albariño is the dominant grape. Further inland lie the smaller regions of Ribeiro, Ribeira Sacra, Valdeorras and Monterrei.

Briny Rías Baixas
Where Galicia’s major rivers empty into the Atlantic, large estuaries (or rías) are formed. Scattered around the lower estuaries of Galicia, or the rías baixas, are more than 9,000 acres of mostly Albariño grapes.

There are five subzones within Rías Baixas—Val do Salnés, Condado do Tea, O Rosal, Ribeira do Ulla and Soutomaior—but Salnés is ground zero for the Albariño trade. Condado and O Rosal, which sit alongside the Miño River that separates Spain from Portugal, are warmer areas where grapes like Treixadura and Loureiro are worked into Albariño-based blends.

The base soil throughout Rías Baixas is granitic, so a good Albariño should show a minerally component along with fresh aromas and flavors of the sea, citrus, green apple, stone fruits and tropical fruits. The 2012 vintage of Albariño, which arrives during the late spring into summer, is excellent in quality. Most 2011s are still in good shape, but they should be finished off this year.

Wines from Rías Baixas
Palacio de Fefiñanes sits a stone’s throw from the Atlantic Ocean, in the town of Cambados in Salnés. The overriding style at this palace-housed winery, which first bottled Albariño in the 1920s, is feminine and racy. That’s no surprise, given that the winemaker is Cristina Mantilla, who consults for a number of Galician wineries and is known for a light-handed touch. Fefiñanes, owned by Juan Gil de Araujo and family, bottles three wines: a lime- and ocean-driven Albariño; 1583, which is aged in oak for six months; and III Año, which spends three years on its lees prior to bottling.

Historic Ribeiro
To famed Spanish novelist Miguel de Cervantes (Don Quixote), the Ribadavia section of Ribeiro was Spain’s “Mother of Wine.” Through the 16th century, Ribeiro, which means “river bank” in Gallego, was one of Europe’s most active wine communities. But like many traditional Spanish wine regions, centuries of apathy followed by a desire for more volume saw indigenous varieties like Treixadura and Albariño bumped aside by bland, high-yielding grapes like Palomino and Garnacha.

Ribeiro, however, is on the comeback trail. Split into three sections—Miño (most commercial), Arnoia (smallest vineyards) and Avia (the prime cut, containing the subzone of Gomariz)—Ribeiro is building a reputation for fresh but elevated Treixadura-driven wines made from grapes planted on hillside terraces.

The combination of Atlantic and Mediterranean influences gives Ribeiro wines more body and floral richness than Albariño from Rías Baixas. The 2011 harvest in Ribeiro was abundant and of good quality, while 2012 was small, but excellent. The 2011s are largely what you will see for the rest of the year.

Breathtaking Ribeira Sacra
If you want to be blown away by the sheer physical nature of a wine region, head to Ribeira Sacra, the “Sacred Bank,” located between Ribeiro and Valdeorras along the Sil and Miño rivers. With terraced, vertigo-inducing vineyards dotting incredibly steep hillsides, Ribeira Sacra, on first take, appears better left for the goats.
But wineries like Adega Algueira and Dominio do Bibei are waging a friendly battle with the terrain and hot summers to produce a limited number of excellent white and red wines. The whites are made mostly from Godello, while the reds are made from Mencía, Merenzao (Trousseau) and Garnacha.

The decomposed nature of the Ribeira Sacra soils lends an extra level of elegance to its wines. Standing hundreds of feet above the Sil River, in crumbling schist-based vineyards that require a manual elevator system to get grapes up to the main road, one particular Spanish word comes to mind: excitante (exciting).




















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