I'm on an Atlantic/Celtic trek Galicia, Asturias, Ireland to try and get some rain, cool winds and green landscapes in before I return to central Spain and its 40C temps, and a probably early harvest, in this 2003 redux we're enduring in Iberia.
First leg, Ras Baixas: 34C and not a cloud in sight today. Not very successful in my quest, for now
Oh well. There IS much greenery about. And lots of albario vines, perched high on their pergolas held up by thin granite columns. Plus, there's that most legendary albario vineyard of all, Gerardo Mndez's lot of 200 year-old vines right beneath his house and tiny winery, mid-slope at Meao, overlooking many more vineyards in the Salns valley, and small hills with eucalyptus trees on top, and the Atlantic Ocean at the end of it all.
I hadn't been in that 1-hectare vineyard (divided into three wide terraces) since 2000, but it looks just as lush today as it did then. And the healthy bunches of grapes look more than promising.
Inside the old, graceful granite house, I sat with Gerardo (who's just as amazed as I am at this heat wave in southern Galicia) and with Florentino Martnez Monje of Luberri (one of the real 'vignerons' in Rioja) and Barcelona merchant Joan Valncia. We were all seeking refuge from the scorching sun. We tasted Do Ferreiro 2009, an amazing success in a generally dismal harvest in the region: taut, precise, refined, fresh, mineral (you think you're tasting the Salns siliceous sands), long. Great wine. Then we tasted some Cepas Vellas 2009, still on its lees in a stainless steel vat, which will be bottled in a couple of months. It will be one of the finest CVs probably not too showy at first, but a 'vin de garde' which will grow and grow. Gerardo will bottle some magnums an absolute must buy, I think to myself. Total production: probably some 7,500 bottles (a little less depending on the number of magnums, of course), of which 2,000 will be sold in the US.
We also tasted Gerardo's second experiment with oak-fermented albario, and the unanimous verdict was as with the first still too oaky. It won't be released. Joan and I will start looking for something like a 2,000-liter 'foudre', already used, somewhere in the Rhine or Mosel That might do the trick.
Other wines of merit during a four-day stay in Ras Baixas: Palacio de Fefianes 2009, which is another one of the rare winners in this modest Ras Baixas vintage, and two reds: Bastin de la Luna 2006 Forjas del Salns, a cao tinto/loureiro tinto blend made in Ras Baixas by Rodrigo Mndez (Gerardo's nephew and fierce competitor) and Joaqun Rebolledo Menca Barrica 2008, a Valdeorras red with hardly a touch of oak, as fresh and pungent as the Ras Baixas wine. With Bierzo already well-known, and Ribeira Sacra having been anointed by Gerry Dawes and Eric Asimov, Valdeorras has been left in a sort of forgotten limbo between the two. And it's a heck of a fine menca terroir of its own!
First leg, Ras Baixas: 34C and not a cloud in sight today. Not very successful in my quest, for now
Oh well. There IS much greenery about. And lots of albario vines, perched high on their pergolas held up by thin granite columns. Plus, there's that most legendary albario vineyard of all, Gerardo Mndez's lot of 200 year-old vines right beneath his house and tiny winery, mid-slope at Meao, overlooking many more vineyards in the Salns valley, and small hills with eucalyptus trees on top, and the Atlantic Ocean at the end of it all.
I hadn't been in that 1-hectare vineyard (divided into three wide terraces) since 2000, but it looks just as lush today as it did then. And the healthy bunches of grapes look more than promising.
Inside the old, graceful granite house, I sat with Gerardo (who's just as amazed as I am at this heat wave in southern Galicia) and with Florentino Martnez Monje of Luberri (one of the real 'vignerons' in Rioja) and Barcelona merchant Joan Valncia. We were all seeking refuge from the scorching sun. We tasted Do Ferreiro 2009, an amazing success in a generally dismal harvest in the region: taut, precise, refined, fresh, mineral (you think you're tasting the Salns siliceous sands), long. Great wine. Then we tasted some Cepas Vellas 2009, still on its lees in a stainless steel vat, which will be bottled in a couple of months. It will be one of the finest CVs probably not too showy at first, but a 'vin de garde' which will grow and grow. Gerardo will bottle some magnums an absolute must buy, I think to myself. Total production: probably some 7,500 bottles (a little less depending on the number of magnums, of course), of which 2,000 will be sold in the US.
We also tasted Gerardo's second experiment with oak-fermented albario, and the unanimous verdict was as with the first still too oaky. It won't be released. Joan and I will start looking for something like a 2,000-liter 'foudre', already used, somewhere in the Rhine or Mosel That might do the trick.
Other wines of merit during a four-day stay in Ras Baixas: Palacio de Fefianes 2009, which is another one of the rare winners in this modest Ras Baixas vintage, and two reds: Bastin de la Luna 2006 Forjas del Salns, a cao tinto/loureiro tinto blend made in Ras Baixas by Rodrigo Mndez (Gerardo's nephew and fierce competitor) and Joaqun Rebolledo Menca Barrica 2008, a Valdeorras red with hardly a touch of oak, as fresh and pungent as the Ras Baixas wine. With Bierzo already well-known, and Ribeira Sacra having been anointed by Gerry Dawes and Eric Asimov, Valdeorras has been left in a sort of forgotten limbo between the two. And it's a heck of a fine menca terroir of its own!
