A Visit to Galicia Part 2

Tuesday - 3^rd Visit

9am: Bodegas Carballal, DO Valdeorras

A small, modern winery in Valdeorras, making a great range of fresh, modern styles of wines, more commercial but I reckon should be fantastic for the Summer:

2011 Sileno Blanco

Palomino/Godello 11.5%

Fresh, clean, light and fruity, nice character. 

2011 Erebro

100% Godello

Very good, with lovely depth, touch of spice, really nicely put together with real sense of complexity. 

2011 Sileno Red

Mencia/Garnarcha

Lovely crunch blackberry /cherry and blueberry notes.  Spicey, fresh fruited, lifted and delightfully honest. 

2011 Erebro

100% Mencia

Good deep fruit, intense, ripe, fresh, lovely lively fruit.  Good dark fruit with herbaceous notes of undergrowth finishing with a touch of bitter chocolate.  Excellent 

A worthwhile visit and I hope to get some of this in for the Summer.

Visit 4

Do Campo Gacio Valdeorras:

We eventually found this tiny wine estate tucked away in the Galician hills.  Walking up the very old hamlet, greeted by the barking of dogs and under the suspicious glares of old men in work overalls, we finally came upon the charming Manuel and Remedios.

Manuel is a practising dentist and has been producing wines in his wife’s old grandfather’s winery for the past few years, making organic Mencia, Tempranillo and Godello - this was my revelation of the trip!

This is a real cottage industry, without even a website to look at and producing about 6000 bottles a year.  Made in a meticulously clean cellar, the wines are a sensation!

The vineyards are located on the hillside, at an altitude of 650 to 700 meters, with a northeast-southwest orientation. The climate is transitional between continental and oceanic, temperatures are extreme with snow in the winter and yet in the Summer it can rise to over 40c!

2012 Godello 12.5%ish

Rich, spicey, apple, hawthorne, lovely, rich and lively.

Very good balance on the palate, pretty, pithy, floral notes, with a wonderful freshness and intensity.  Slight nutty/savoury notes on the finish, opening up with more salty, savoury, complex notes – utterly sublime! 

2012 Mencia 80%/Tempranillo 20%

The nose just hits you, awesome dark briary fruit, really rich and complex yet fresh and luscious.  That touch of savoury nuttiness on the palate too, this stunning mid-bodied style of wine is simply sublime too.  Perfect! 

Visit 5

Bodega Forjas del Salnés

Rias Baixas

Overnight stay at the lovely Gran Talaso Hotel in Sanxenxo http://www.hotelsanxenxo.com/

Rodrigo is one of Spain’s new wave winemakers who look at the wealth of their history for the inspiration for the future.  Passionate about old vines and old varieties, Rodri vinifies about 25 different cuvees, some single vineyard, some multi vineyard, some in 2 year old oak, some in concrete but all with one key goal in mind – terroir!

We visited the new winery first and tasted the very impressive range of 2012 wines from cask.

Rodrigo is perhaps best known in Spanish wine circles for his stellar reds produced from the indigenous Galician varietals Caiño, Espadeiro and Loureiro, however his whites are also outstanding. They are fermented with natural yeasts and then matured on lees for months to give complex, full-bodied wines with a fresh acid backbone and a briny tang on the finish

2011 Leirana Albariño

Made from a selection of vineyard sites, this albarino displays a terrific nose of pear, stonefruit and a delicious fruit and acidity on the palate.  This wine is far greater than the sum of its parts and set to become an icon of the region. A wine with real depth and interest.

2009 Albarino En Barrica

The Barrica used here are old, so there is no new oak effect on the wine, here the barrels give the wine an extra degree of richness, roundness and more weight.  Grown on granite sand covered with a layer of humus over granite bedrock; very poor fast draining soil that vines struggle in and phylloxera cannot live in, just perfect! Many of the vineyards are deceptively old with some vines up to 200 years old. The grapes are hand picked so that only the ripest most succulent fruit is used for Rodrigo`s wine which is matured in old oak barriques. Ripe stone fruits with a hint of cut grass and sandlewood on the nose with stone fruits and antique oak with well balanced acidity on the palate.