The 4,800ha wine region now known as Rías Baixas first gained appellation status in the early 1980s, as DO Albariño.

However, when Spain joined the EU in 1986, a geographic designation became mandatory and the name Rías Baixas was chosen.

This term refers to the picturesque estuaries that shape Galicia’s west coast, the source of superb fish and other seafood.

The main wine-producing area of Rías Baixas, Salnés, is strategically located between the Arousa and Pontevedra estuaries.

A popular tourist destination, it combines a rich cultural and gastronomic heritage with a landscape of contrasts, where mountains merge with the coastline.

Due to real estate pressure, land is very expensive, so selling vineyards is a lucrative business opportunity.

Nevertheless, according to the DO Rías Baixas 2025 vintage report summary, this area accounted for 65% of the wider region’s grape output in the 2025 harvest.

There are four other sub-zones in Rías Baixas. O Rosal, in the south, is the only one of these that faces the sea, at the mouth of the river Miño, which marks the border with Portugal.

Further inland, upriver, lies Condado do Tea, a warmer, drier area. A little to the north, between Condado do Tea and Salnés, lies the tiny Soutomaior.

And to the north of Salnés, also inland, is Ribeira do Ulla, an emergent area for larger planting operations given the DO’s smallholding area of 4,800ha distributed across about 24,000 plots.

It’s no surprise that, in the past, people made the most of the land by growing vegetables under the vine pergolas.

Albariño explosion

Given there were just over 200ha of Albariño in all of Galicia in 1999 (according to data from the Spain vineyard register, compiled by Madrid’s agricultural research institute IMIDRA), the DO has experienced meteoric growth.

Climate change has certainly helped.

As part of ‘Green Spain’, Rías Baixas remains one of the wettest wine regions in the world, with an annual average rainfall of 1,400mm-1,600mm.

Organic growing is still rare, but summers are drier now. ‘We’ve gone from harvesting in autumn to summer,’ says Eulogio Pomares of Bodegas Zárate. ‘This has solved many issues related to botrytis, poor ripeness and rainfall at harvest time.’

The largest vineyard areas are controlled by the cooperatives in Salnés, such as Martín Códax, Paco & Lola and Condes de Albarei.

The rest is shared among small- to medium-sized local producers and external players, notably from Rioja, which have been setting up in the area since the late 1980s. Most of them buy grapes from local growers.

With consumption of white wines on the rise, the last decade has seen a second wave of investors, including Ribera del Duero’s Vega Sicilia, whose much-anticipated first release from its new Bodegas y Viñedos Deiva project in Crecente (Condado do Tea) is scheduled for 2027.

This has caused an increase in demand for grapes, rising prices and new plantings, which have eventually led to a major correction in grape prices in 2025, when the area harvested a record 47.5 million kilograms.

Another generous harvest will probably challenge wine sales.

Levelling up

A growing number of producers are now focused on premiumisation.

This is usually achieved by either extending ageing of the wine on lees to gain complexity and ageing potential; by introducing vessels other than stainless steel (oak foudres, concrete, granite, amphorae); by focusing on specific soils or areas; or by producing single-vineyard wines.

There’s plenty to choose from. Most vineyards in Rías Baixas are planted on granite soils that have undergone varying degrees of weathering.

This often results in a sandy texture that has preserved small batches of ungrafted and pre-phylloxera vines. Schist veins and alluvial deposits can also be found in most sub-zones.

Other differences can also be brought about by elevation of vineyards, exposure and proximity to the sea and rivers. The drawback of most single-vineyard wines is that they’re produced in limited quantities.

Points of difference

With Albariño accounting for 97% of overall production in Rías Baixas, there’s little room for other varieties.

However, choosing to produce Godello, Treixadura (more common in Condado do Tea) or Caíño Blanco – a variety recovered by Terras Gauda in O Rosal – is a way to stand out.

White blends are more common in Condado do Tea, thanks to the presence of Treixadura, and O Rosal, the sub-zone featuring more varietal diversity, yet this category remains uncharted territory when it comes to high-end wines.

Traditional-method Albariño sparkling wines and reds are the two other small slices of the Rías Baixas pie.

With their vigorous bubbles and relatively high prices, it’s difficult for Albariño to compete with Cava and other Spanish sparkling wines, but extended ageing might help change that.

With alcohol levels of around 11%-12% – probably the lowest in Spain – the Rías Baixas red wines are a small but interesting category.

Climate change, together with some excellent local varieties, such as Espadeiro, Caíño and Brancellao, will undoubtedly boost the category.

Pioneer red wine producer Forjas del Salnés has been perfecting its selection process since 2024, and the winery now harvests grapes at different stages, relying exclusively on fully ripe berries.

This results in wines with more fruit and a slightly higher alcohol content, while retaining the area’s natural acidity.

20 of the best from Rías Baixas (and not just Albariño)

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David Williams, Matthew Forster MW and Diana Rollan tasted 118 wines, with 2 Outstanding and 20 Highly Recommended.

Spanish rosado & clarete: Panel tasting scores

118 wines tasted

Exceptional 0

Outstanding 2

Highly recommended 20

Recommended 57

Commended 26

Fair 13

Poor 0

Entry criteria: producers and UK agents were invited to submit their current-release, still rosado (produced from red grapes following the saignée/sangrado or direct press method) or clarete (25% red grapes/must and 75% white grapes/must, blended before alcoholic fermentation) wines from any ageing category of joven, roble, crianza, reserva or gran reserva

This tasting featured one of the best wines I and my two fellow judges, Matthew Forster MW and Diana Rollan, have encountered in a Decanter panel tasting. A unanimous 97-pointer, Bodega Hacienda Lopéz de Haro’s Classica Gran Reserva Rosado 2013 is vying for a place in my personal pantheon: is this the finest Spanish rosado I’ve ever tasted? It’s certainly up there.

In a rosé winemaking world that is increasingly preoccupied with imitating the model of extremely pale, delicately flavoured wines, patented (with extraordinary recent success) by Provence, the Classica was a vivid and timely reminder.

Other styles of rosé are available – and a long tradition of making deeper-coloured, more powerfully flavoured and more robustly textured rosados is one of Spanish wine’s many strengths. And sure enough, it was wines made in this tradition that stood out and attracted our highest scores.

Scroll down to see tasting notes and scores from the Spanish rosado & clarete panel tasting

Spanish rosé tradition

We were less enamoured with wines that seemed to be trying to copy Provence. It’s not that these pale wines were bad per se (indeed, some were very good). It’s just that, as Rollan said while discussing one of the higher-scoring pale wines: ‘It’s a perfectly well-made wine: refreshing, fruity… But what it doesn’t have is any kind of Spanish character. The world doesn’t need more Provence-style rosés.’

And she added: ‘Spain has its own rosé tradition and it’s a shame when they just try to copy something that you find all over the world.’

Forster agreed. ‘With some exceptions, the better wines for me were true-to-type rosados, made in a more traditional full-bodied style, rather than wannabe Provence-style rosés,’ he said. ‘There were also a couple of experimental wines that really stood out, demonstrating sophisticated winemaking and a more confident, authentic approach.’

On the strength of this tasting, ‘authentic’ rosados can be found all over Spain, and while Rioja claimed the top two scores, there were high-scoring wines of real character and interest from Galicia, Navarra and various parts of Catalonia.

Varietally speaking, Garnacha was a consistent performer, but Tempranillo struggled, with many showing an awkward, green/unripe side and noticeable alcoholic heat on the finish.

See all the wines from the Spanish rosado & clarete panel tasting

Clear disparity

The scores suggest I was more enthusiastic than my fellow judges about the claretes we tasted, although we all appreciated the variety and character on offer in these white-and-red-grape co-fermentations, which varied from light reds to those that more closely resembled orange wines.

Overall, perhaps our most significant finding was the big disparity between wines from the best producers and the rest. It may be the legacy of a time when rosé was effectively a by-product of red wine production.

But there’s a sense that some producers have, in Forster’s words, ‘underestimated the technical challenges associated with this form of winemaking and are struggling to find their way’.

Great rosés may be marked by an easygoing, easy-drinking grace, but making great rosé is by no means as easy as it looks.

Spanish rosado & clarete panel tasting scores

Wines were tasted blind

The judges

David Williams is wine correspondent for The Observer, a regular contributor to Decanter on all things Spanish, and a widely published wine writer, author and competition judge.

Matthew Forster MW is an independent wine consultant and education specialist, and founder of The Wine Partnership. A former director at the Wine & Spirit Education Trust, he has a particular passion for the food and wine cultures of Spain, Portugal and South America.

Diana Rollan is group head of beverage for D&D London restaurants group. A DWWA judge for Spain, she formerly managed training and wine buying at Hakkasan Group as its UK head of wine.

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Sarah Jane Evans MW, Pierre Mansour and Beth Willard tasted 137 wines, with 1 Exceptional, 5 Outstanding and 71 Highly recommended.

Albariño: Panel tasting scores

137 wines tasted

Exceptional 1

Outstanding 5

Highly recommended 71

Recommended 59

Commended 1

Fair 0

Poor 0

Entry criteria: Producers and UK agents were invited to submit their current-release vintages of still white wines made from 100% Albariño

Search this website for Rías Baixas Albariño reviews and you will find we did a panel tasting way back in 2016. It was already an established favourite on wine lists: the new face of Spanish white, peachy and unoaked. We talked then of the risk that global demand was turning Albariño into another Pinot Grigio.

The verdict then was that it was a tasting of two halves. Said Pierre Mansour at the time: there were ‘some truly great [wines] with real identity and class… no poor or faulty wines, but too many neutral ones’.

Scroll down to see tasting notes and scores from the Albariño panel tasting

Fast forward to 2023 and we expected a similar outcome, using the classic Albariño vocabulary: peach, citrus, white flowers. To our delight, we found we were using a much broader range of descriptors: flint, mineral, saline, Atlantic, preserved lemon, elderflower, dried mango, savoury, serious… Altogether it was a really enjoyable tasting, full of promise for lovers of Atlantic whites. Seven years on, Mansour was delighted to declare: ‘The overall standard was very high.’

Our verdicts can be divided into three: quality, diversity, ageability. In terms of quality, the results speak for themselves. More than half of the wines scored 90 points or more. Six scored 95pts or more: each one a different style. Only one wine was faulty (corked, so not included in this coverage). However, the quality of these wines is reflected in their pricing. ‘Albariño is not a value wine,’ observed Mansour. We looked to recommend value wines but it was difficult. Of the 18 wines priced at £15 or under, only one scored 93pts, and the rest 91pts or less.

On diversity, Beth Willard confirmed that ‘clearly, Rías Baixas is not homogenous’. Gone are the uniform descriptors. Today the sub-zones, north to south, reveal their differences – from the seashell, saline notes of many (coastal) Salnés sub-zone wines to the ripeness of Condado do Tea – a little more inland and warmer, on the banks of the river Tea – and the distinct fennel character noted by Willard of the O Rosal sub-zone wines. Equally, the winemaking was diverse – but in a good way. While stainless steel dominates, more Albariño producers are using oak, but in small proportions or larger or older containers. The bonus is that in general the handling was sensitive. Willard was pleased to note that few producers were attempting to make a Sauvignon Blanc-style wine.

See all 137 Albariño wines from the panel tasting

As for ageability, two-thirds of the wines were from the latest 2022 vintage. We felt that many were too young and would have benefited from another six months in bottle. Notably, the majority of our Outstanding wines were older or much older. What this tasting resoundingly proved is that in the right place, and carefully handled, Albariño ages beautifully. The model is Pazo Señorans’ Selección de Añada, grown on xabre, the local weathered granite. The wine is unoaked and aged on its lees in stainless steel for 30 months. It was a pioneering wine, but is now joined by others, notably the Añada de Baladiña, with its 10 years in bottle after lees ageing.

The final verdict? Continue to enjoy your Rías Baixas Albariño young. However do also seek out the very individual small producers, such as Xosé Lois Sebio, working in the region with old and very old vines. Above all, do explore the glorious mature wines.

The best Albariño is a keeper, and one of Spain’s great wines.

Albariño: Panel tasting scores

The judges

Sarah Jane Evans MW is a Decanter contributing editor and Co-Chair of the Decanter World Wine Awards. Her latest book The Wines of Central and Southern Spain (£35 Infinite Ideas) is set for release in early 2024.

Pierre Mansour is director of wine at The Wine Society, and has been buying The Society’s Spanish wines since 2008. He is a member of Spain’s Gran Orden de Caballeros del Vino, and a DWWA joint Regional Chair for Spain.

Beth Willard is involved in sourcing wines for both the on- and off-trade in the UK, with a particular focus on Eastern Europe and Spain. Formerly buying manager at Direct Wines, she is a member of Spain’s Gran Orden de Caballeros del Vino, and a DWWA joint Regional Chair for Spain.

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The rain in Spain falls mainly in Galicia. OK, that’s an exaggeration. There are other parts of the country that are wet – the coast of the Basque country, for instance – but when I visit, Spain’s Atlantic northwest corner always seems to be under a damp duvet of clouds.

Santiago de Compostela, the most famous city in the region, is one of the two wettest in Spain (according to Aemet data, 1981-2010), along with San Sebastián.

Following close behind are Pontevedra, A Coruña and Vigo, all of them in Galicia. The southern viticultural regions of Condado do Tea and O Rosal, located on the border with Portugal, are certainly warmer and drier, but we’re not talking La Mancha.

No wonder Galicians consider morriña (melancholy) to be part of their DNA.

Scroll down to see Tim Atkin’s 1o Rías Baixas wines to try

Climate change is affecting Galicia, of course – with the exception of the late-picked 2021 growing season, recent harvests have been hotter and (relatively speaking) drier – but this is still a cool, drizzly place to grow grapes.

Organic viticulture may be inadvisable because of the risk of vineyard diseases, but the prevailing conditions are well suited to the production of the fresh, tangy white wines that have made Galicia’s name over the last couple of decades, especially with Albariño in its best sub-region, the Val do Salnés.

Ancient history

Albariño – known as Alvarinho in nearby Portugal, where it is one of the mainstays of Vinho Verde – has been in Galicia for a very long time. It was definitely here when the Romans arrived and quite possibly before that, if recent archaeological finds in the city of Vigo are a reliable guide. Albariño, you see, has thick skin, which is useful in a wet region, and good levels of natural acidity that are the perfect foil for the local seafood.

It’s hard to think of another white grape that has enjoyed such success over the last two decades. Italian Pinot Grigio perhaps, but Albariño has greater cachet and higher prices, and is a superior variety. The curious thing is that Albariño was virtually unknown, even in its home from home, 50 years ago. ‘In the 1970s, the main grape was red Espadeiro,’ says Eulogio Pomares of Zárate. ‘In fact, 80% of the vineyards were red.’ Albariño was almost insignificant, with just 200ha under vine. Today, the grape accounts for a whopping 4,086ha.

What changed its fortunes? Once the Rías Baixas Denominación de Origen was created in 1988, Galicians began to realise the appeal of Albariño. It had always had its fans – the annual festival dedicated to the grape in the town of Cambados dates back to the early 1950s – but they were in a minority. Little by little, Albariño began to establish a reputation as a world-class variety: one with ageing potential, too. Pazo de Señorans, in particular, specialises in bottle-matured versions of the grape with its Selecciones de Añada, of which the current release is the 2013. Most Albariño is drunk young – it can legally be sold from the point in November when the DO control body validates the vintage, typically around the 20th – but the majority of those drinkers are missing out on one of its greatest assets.

Rías Baixas at a glance

DO Established 1988, the largest of Galicia’s five DOs. (The others are Monterrei, Ribeiro, Ribeira Sacra and Valdeorras)

Region Part of so-called ‘green Spain’, located in the northwest corner of the country. A region of high rainfall, especially in the north, with rivers, estuaries and, of course, the Atlantic coast

Major cities A Coruña and Vigo; Santiago de Compostela, also famous as a pilgrimage destination

Planted area 4,329ha – divided between five very different sub-zones: Val do Salnés (the biggest), Condado do Tea, O Rosal, Soutomaior and Ribeira do Ulla

Soils Mostly granite with some clay, gravel, sand and schist

Wineries The region has 179 bodegas, 5,011 growers and a remarkable 22,832 individual plots, many of which are tiny

Annual production About 37.3m bottles

Grapes Mostly Albariño (94% of plantings). The remainder is made up of (whites) Caíño Blanco, Godello, Loureira Blanca, Torrontés and Treixadura; (reds) Brancellao, Caíño Tinto, Castañal, Loureira Tinta, Mencía, Pedral and Sousón

[Source: DO Rías Baixas, 2022]

What about the reds?

Albariño may be the star turn in these parts, with more than 94% of Rías Baixas’ 4,329ha, but the region has a supporting cast, too, some of which are only grown in this northwest corner of the Iberian peninsula: Caíño Blanco, Godello, Loureira, Treixadura and Torrontés. Standalone examples of these grapes are rare, but two of the region’s five sub regions – O Rosal and Condado de Tea – specialise in blends. Albariño generally partners well with other grapes, especially Loureira and Treixadura.

The region’s reds also deserve a mention. Often rare grapes such as Brancellao, Caíño Tinto, Castañal, Espadeiro, Mencía and Pedral account for only 1.2% of plantings, but for me, they are some of the most distinctive Spanish tintos: tangy, bright, elegant and thirst-quenching, with more presence and structure than you might imagine. If you love the wines of DOs Ribeira Sacra and Bierzo (the latter just over the border in the Castilla y León region), you’ll adore these.

No one seems in a rush to plant more red vineyards, partly because yields are about one third of those of Albariño, but climate change has made it much easier to produce good wines every year. ‘We’re picking two weeks earlier than we were 15 years ago,’ says Paco Arenas of Señorío de Rubios, one of 26 bodegas that make red wines. Apart from Señorío de Rubios, other red producers to look out for are Albamar, Attis, Zárate and especially Forjas del Salnés, where Rodri Méndez works with Bierzo superstar Raúl Pérez.

Know your vintages: Rías Baixas

2022 Unusually hot, dry vintage, with some welcome rains just before harvest, which added volume and freshness to the grapes. Potential quality outstanding.

2021 A very cool vintage, with low temperatures in the summer that barely touched 30°C. Alcohols lower than in recent vintages, with marked acidity in some wines. Quality mixed.

2020 The Covid vintage. Botrytis in some vineyards and reasonably warm. Ripe, full-flavoured wines with balancing acidity in the best

areas, especially the Val do Salnés.

2019 Dry vintage with above- average temperatures. Yields were lower than usual, producing wines that are generally ripe and concentrated.

2018 A cool, humid spring, late flowering. A late vintage of good rather than spectacular quality that was saved by August sunshine.

2017 Early flowering followed by a typical summer of moderate to warm temperatures. Overall crop comparatively large. Decent quality.

Shape shifter

I’m a huge fan of these reds, but there’s no denying the celebrity of Rías Baixas is tied to Albariño. Wine drinkers imagine that it’s reassuringly predictable, but it’s actually protean, capable of many different expressions. There are several important influences. One is soil type: as well as predominant granite, the region’s vineyards contain lesser percentages of sand and schist, among other things, which affect the structure of resulting wines. Water is a second crucial factor, and not just rainfall. How close they are to the Atlantic, or to one of the four estuaries (rías) after which the DO is named, tends to increase freshness and salinity in whites as well as reds. And then there are things such as sunshine hours, altitude (never very high, but there are variations), aspect and picking dates.

It’s possible to manipulate Albariño in the bodega, too. The style favoured by most winemakers is temperature-controlled stainless steel fermentation, usually with lees contact for texture. But open your eyes as you walk around a few cellars, and you can see a range of containers: foudres, concrete tanks, flexitanks, even granite eggs, patented by local producer Santiago Roma and hewn from the local bedrock. Also relevant is the use of malolactic fermentation – widely used to soften the sometimes tart 2021s – as well as pressing cycles on a grape with such thick skins.

Albariño’s only problem – and it’s a nice one – is that it’s almost too popular. Could it become a victim of its own success? Volumes have grown tenfold over the last 30 years. The worry is that demand will outstrip supply. No wonder the region’s 5,011 grape growers look so happy, as the majority of the 179 bodegas buy grapes from them. Prices are spiralling upwards, at least for now, and have risen steeply since 2019 to a high for some producers of €3.20 per kilogram in 2022. Is this sustainable? In the current economic climate, it’s a pressing question.

Eight Rías Baixas names to know

Albamar

Xurxo Alba makes an impressive range of reds and whites from his family’s 8ha in Cambados, as well as purchased grapes. The top wine is Sesenta

y Nove Arrobas, an ageworthy, unwooded, old-vine Albariño from five parcels, but the reds, especially the Espadeiro and Mencía are worth a detour. @albamarbodegas

Attis

Brothers Robustiano and Baldomero Fariña farm mussels as well as 13ha of vineyards in the Val do Salnés. The range is extensive and reliably good, including the best orange wine in the region, Sitta Doliola, as well as an extensive line-up of thirst-quenching varietal reds made from Brancellao, Caíño Tinto, Espadeiro and Pedral.

Forjas del Salnes

If anyone qualifies as a cult winemaker in Rías Baixas, then it’s arguably self-effacing Rodri Méndez, who has benefited from the advice of Bierzo’s superstar producer, Raúl Pérez, when it comes to his reds (Goliardo is a total bargain). The Leirana Areas de Arra Albariño, sourced from a single parcel on ‘beach sand’ is among Spain’s greatest whites. @bodegaforjasdelsalnes

Lagar de Costa

The brother and sister team of Manuel and Sonia Costa have taken this small family winery in Castrelo to new heights. Their 7ha are Atlantic-influenced – one of them is just 15 metres from the waves – and produce wines of stony, saline intensity. The pick of the range is the single-vineyard Calabobos, named after the persistent Galician drizzle.

Palacio de Fefiñanes

Located on the main square in Cambados, Fefiñanes was the first bodega to bottle a varietal Albariño back in 1928. Grapes are sourced almost exclusively from local growers and quality is high. The best-seller is Albariño de Fefiñanes, but Cristina Mantilla also makes a barrel-aged white (1583) and the salty, long-lived III Año.

Pazo de Señorans

Very much a winery with a female touch – Ana Quintela is the winemaker and Marisol Bueno the owner and the DO’s first president in 1988 – Pazo de Señorans is a textbook Albariño producer. The most interesting wine here is the Selección de Añada, from 4ha of old vines on slopes, which is generally released after a decade in bottle.

Santiago Roma

Less well known than he should be, Santiago Roma farms just 6ha in Ribadumia. Everything he makes is delicious, from his Colleita to his estate Albariño to his Selección. But the most exciting and unusual wine here is Pedranai, fermented and lees-aged in a specially designed granite egg. There are only 600 bottles, alas, but it’s stunning.

Zarate

Eulogio Pomares began making wine with his aunts and the chef de cave of Zárate’s distinguished late founder Ernesto Zárate. Pomares studied oenology

in Bordeaux, returning to Galicia for the 1999 harvest and taking full charge from 2000. With a profound knowledge of the history of Rías Baixas, he and his wife Rebecca make a brilliant range of whites and reds from 12 parcels covering 10ha. My favourites are two of their single-vineyard Albariños: Tras da Viña and the richer El Palomar.

Atkin’s Atlantic 10: a taste of Rías Baixas

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Vega Sicilia’s announcement of its project in Galicia brings an end to months of industry speculation over where exactly the company would make its first Spanish white wines.

Spanish daily newspapers El País and Cinco Días revealed news of the construction of a new winery and the acquisition of 24 hectares of vineyards by Vega Sicilia, owned by the Álvarez family.

Vega Sicilia confirmed that production would initially consist of two white wines: Deiva, a white Crianza (aged 2 years); and Arnela, a premium wine (aged for 3 years).

Both wines are expected to be released in 2025.

The producer said that its aim was to make 300,000 bottles of white wines annually, primarily focused on the white grape variety Albariño.

Vega Sicilia told El País that it had acquired 24 hectares of vineyards in several areas of the Rías Baixas, including Condado de Tea, surrounding the Miño river and in Crecente, near the border with Portugal, where the company will build the new winery named Deiva.

It said the Albariño grape variety could produce high-end Spanish white wines.

The decision to invest in the green, Atlantic reaches of Spain is unsurprising considering the climatic challenges, including drought, faced by Spanish producers in areas further south of the country.

Based in Spain’s Ribera del Duero, Vega Sicilia also makes wine in the Spanish regions of Rioja, Toro, and in Hungary.

Business newspaper Cinco Días said on 7 February that Vega Sicilia made profits of €30m (£25.3m) in 2021, from a turnover of €60m.

Vega Sicilia declined to comment further on the announcement.

Originally founded in 1864, Vega Sicilia was acquired by the Álvarez family in 1982, and the family is planning to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the purchase this year. 

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Made in Rías Baixas in northern Spain’s Galicia, Albariño is a crisp white wine with signature freshness. Boasting vibrant acidity and salty Atlantic notes, it’s a great match for seafood. Albariño is usually drunk young, but a recent tasting of older expressions set out to prove that actually this is a grape that can be aged successfully.

Scroll down to see tasting notes and scores for seven aged Abariño wines worth seeking out

From a total of just over 4,000ha of vineyards in DO Rías Baixas, 96% is planted to Albariño, with 5,131 growers working in the region. Characterised by its granite soils, it’s a region of small vineyard plots boasting about 20,000 individual sites.

The importance of selecting particular plots to produce ageworthy wines emerged as a theme during the tasting, as seven Rías Baixas producers joined us via Zoom. They showcased bottles from 2019 all the way back to 2010. Old vines were also seen as key to ageability, producing fewer grapes but with more intensity of flavour.

Vintage variation

Vintage quality also plays a role. Diego Ríos Muñoz, winemaker at Agro de Bazán, explains: ‘Though our main production is focused on fresh, young Albarinos, the winery had always had reference wines that stay longer in the cellar, and they go later on the market. We don’t do it every year – just in those vintages where we are very happy with the quality.’

He looks for ‘really healthy grapes’, with no botrytis and the perfect balance of alcohol and acidity. But he adds: ‘It’s a very long process. It’s not just the moment of the harvest. It’s also the evolution afterwards in the cellar.’

Just 10,000 bottles of his Gran Bazán Don Alvaro de Bazán 2018 were produced. It spent two years on lees and one in bottle in the cellar before release. As Ríos Muñoz noted, this extra time allows notes of ‘ripe fruit, papaya, white chocolate, even a little bit of tobacco’ to develop, producing ‘a completely different aspect of the variety’.

He added: ‘These aged Albariños are so beautiful because they can compete internationally with varieties like Chenin Blanc or Riesling.’

Lees ageing

Extended time on full or fine lees was a signature of many other bottles in the tasting. This lees ageing adds body and texture to the wines, giving a creaminess that helps to balance the natural acidity of the Albariño grape.

Katia Alvarez, winemaker at Martín Códax, began producing a lees-aged Albariño – Martín Códax Lías – in 2005. After a cool pressing ‘to maintain all the concentration that we have in the grapes’, she starts to work with the lees after fermentation. ‘We increase the quantity of the lees that the wine has, based on lees that we have in the winery. We select lees which are going to concentrate on bringing the nose [aromas].’

After two months of battonage with the additional lees, the wine spends a further 10 months in stainless steel tanks on fine lees. ‘I’m looking for the integration between the flavours that come from the lees and also the flavours from the varietal,’ explains Alvarez.

She explains that for her the Martín Códax Lías 2018 typifies Rías Baixas. ‘We have the creamy notes from the lees, but also an obvious saltiness… some minerality, some spiciness. For me what makes the wine different is the mouthfeel. It’s an example of the potential that Albariño has,’ she added.

Oak influence?

While most of the winemakers ferment and age Albariño in stainless steel, Juan Posada of Viñas e Adegas Galegas ferments in oak. His Adegas Galegas Veigadares 2017 has a backbone of Albariño – sourced from three separate plots in the sub-regions of Salnes Valley, Condado do Tea and O Rosal.

However Posada also includes other native Spanish grapes in the blend: Loureira, Treixadura and Caiño Blanco. Each variety (including the Albariño) is fermented separately in 2,500-litre French oak foudres. ‘We play with different oaks,’ explains Posada, who is looking for increased complexity and ageing potential.

His 2017 wine had some lovely evolved savoury aromas and flavours, all cut through with vibrant acidity. However it was the final wine of the tasting, a library vintage of Pazo de Señoráns Selección de Añada 2010, that really stood out in terms of complexity.

Better with time

‘We’ve always believed in the ageing potential of the Albariño grape,’says Pazo de Señoráns winemaker Vicky Mareque. ‘So in 1995 we made the first vintage of this wine from a single plot, which is called Los Bancales. It’s one of our oldest vineyards, with some vines up to 100 years, but the average age is 55 years.’

Spending up to 38 months on its lees in stainless steel, with further time ageing in tank, then in bottle before release, this is a wine that exemplifies the complexity of aged Albariño. The 2010 vintage was bottled three years ago.

‘The 2010 is quite full-bodied but it’s still quite fresh,’ says Mareque. ‘They acidity is nice, it’s pretty mineral, but we start to see the tertiary aromas and flavours.’

As Sarah Jane Evans MW, DWWA Co-Chair and author of The Wines of Northern Spain, noted in a recent panel tasting of Albariño versus Alvarinho (the Portuguese name for the grape): ‘The best Albariños age beautifully – it is well worth seeking them out.’ Fellow taster Sarah Ahmed agreed: ‘I have tasted Alvarinhos that have been 10 to 20 years old, and they have aged really well.’

While young Albariños should be drunk within four years of release, examples that are made for ageing, such as the wines below, will happily mature in bottle for five to 10 years in your home cellar. Fans of aged white styles certainly shouldn’t ignore Albariño…

Aged Abariño: seven to try

Related content:

Best Albariño wines under £20: ten to try

Origins of Albariño – Ask Decanter

Is this the world’s best winemaker? Pedro Ballesteros Torres MW investigates...

With family roots firmly in Spain’s remote northwestern Bierzo region, Raúl Pérez’s minimal-intervention methods and their extraordinary results have rapidly propelled him to the status of global champion.

There are three kinds of winemaking genius. First, the classicists: those who excel in applying what they have learned from their masters and reaching higher levels of refinement. They are behind the great classic wines.

Then, the innovators, who discover or develop new winemaking approaches, master new technologies, reveal unknown grape varieties, in ways that are easily replicable. We have them to thank for many new wine styles and new regions.

Scroll down to see our experts’ top wines from Raúl Pérez

The third group are those rare geniuses who act upon intuition. One cannot classify their wines; they are simply inimitable, because those wines have somehow encrypted in their tasting profile the unique combination of their terroir’s message, along with the personality of their creator. Intuitive geniuses are transmitters of feelings and visions. Raúl Pérez is the archetype of the intuitive winemaking genius.

Pérez wanted to be a medical doctor, but his family needed him to keep the winery afloat. Times were not good in Bierzo; most wine was sold in bulk and growers struggled to make a living. Pérez decided to study viticulture and oenology, then started working in the family business.

He swiftly introduced many commonsense changes: improved hygiene in the winery, parcel selection, vinification by small batches, cleaner viticulture. It was just the beginning, but such changes would prove crucial to revealing the quality potential in this family’s old-vine Mencía vineyards.

Raúl Pérez at a glance

Born 2 April 1972

Eduction Masters in oenology and viticulture, Requena; agriculture technician, Lugo

Family Single

Hobbies Travelling and meeting friends

Nature’s lead

After these initial improvements, Pérez was making steady progress, but something was missing. he needed help from outside. Then a stroke of luck saw Alvaro Palacios and his nephew, Ricardo Pérez Palacios, arrive in the region. In a few years, they put Bierzo on the world map of quality wines.

Not only that, as Pérez says: ‘Alvaro Palacios brought much more than world recognition for the wines of Bierzo; he also catalysed a huge increase in the self-esteem and confidence of the region’s growers, at a crucial time.’

Many Bierzo wineries simply copied the Palacios style. Not Pérez. He was driven by his curiosity and an open-minded attitude, rather than a desire to make good wines according to a blueprint for commercial success. For his top wines, he chose not to follow any model, instead endeavouring to produce wines with unique personality.

Pérez particularly valued very old vines in selected sites, favouring viticulture that was respectful of the soils. He learned not to wait for the grapes to achieve maximum ripeness (or even overripeness, as others do), but to harvest at a time when there is a subtle, delicate balance between sugar content and phenolic maturity, while the grapes retain their precious acidity. In the same way that he values balanced vines, he values balanced grapes.

Going global

Success arrived in a sudden explosion. Pérez was invited to produce wine both in other Spanish regions and other countries. This wasn’t a problem. While he is deeply rooted in his Bierzo homeland, Pérez is willing to explore the world and to work with people with whom he feels an affinity.

He adores travelling the world, explaining: ‘It’s escaping and learning at the same time; I need that.’ Travel also entails some solitude, but Pérez is convinced that ‘loneliness makes you stronger’. He also feels that what he learns from his travels is beneficial for his own land: ‘I have brought so many good things home from my trips.’

Some people would label Pérez a flying winemaker, but he represents something very different. A flying winemaker is somebody who applies his or her skills and methodologies to wines made in different places. Normally, their wines are made with the consumer in mind, and share a personal signature style. Pérez has an intuitive, open-minded, non-judgemental character, and much curiosity. He accepts and tries to understand complexity in vines and wines, and enjoys working with people he likes. Rather than developing his own personal signature in the wines, he encourages them to interpret the people and the places where they come from.

Because of that approach, Pérez currently makes a staggering 76 wines in many places – and consults for a number of others. The wine profiles could hardly be more diverse, to mention just a few made beyond his core region of Bierzo: in Portugal, a sinewy Baga from Bairrada and a most delicate Douro wine made with Dirk Niepoort; in South Africa, a filigree, old-vine Mourvèdre-Syrah from Swartland (working with Eben Sadie); the saline, slender Albariño Sketch in Rías Baixas; a rounded Alicante Bouschet at Almansa; fresh mountain Garnacha at Cebreros; parsimoniously complex Fondillón selection from Alicante; precise, unique Ribeira Sacra styles…

In Bierzo itself, Pérez identifies at least three distinctive sub-regions. The wines he produces here range from charming basic bottles to the precious single-vineyard selections. He also creates appealing whites from native varieties such as Godello or Doña Blanca. ‘Bierzo is also a land with the potential to deliver top white wines,’ he declares.

The art of discretion

It’s not because of their concentration that Pérez’s wines stand out; rather, they conquer your palate in an unassuming way, gradually displaying unequalled elegance and discreet persistence. The winemaker knows that this complexity comes from harmony rather than from abundance. However, there is not a ‘Raúl Pérez style’. The only traits common to all his wines are an understated delicacy and subtle balance, together with a feeling of identity.

Pérez allows his vines and wines to be alive. He is strict about hygiene, but does not like aseptic winemaking. He likes biodiversity in his vineyards and in his winery, and puts his trust in microbes in the wine to conduct fermentations positively – providing that the initial conditions are good. His customary attitude is a kind of reflexive hands-off.

‘To be too interventionist in your winemaking approach goes against wine identity, in the same way that some children are unbalanced because of their parent’s obsession to try to control everything they do. Wines and children need their space and their free time to develop themselves,’ he says.

Some of his winemaking decisions may seem surprising at first, but they are plain common sense. If a winemaker has enough experience of tasting grapes and the ability to anticipate the style of wines those grapes will result in, that’s all the knowledge needed to decide picking dates. Similarly, healthy and ripe (never overripe) grapes from pesticide-free single vineyards can spontaneously ferment in small vats with no need for temperature control.

Most winemakers use sulphites early in order to capture the sensorial image of the wine while the fruit is still there. But, says Pérez: ‘I do not like fruity wines’. Instead, he looks for the wine’s identity, allowing the recently fermented wine to lose part of the fruit and to become itself, avoiding such intervention. Besides, by allowing the development of a yeasty protective flor in the vat or barrel, even for red wines, those wines can develop their complexity through ageing, without the use of sulphur dioxide.

Individual paths

Pérez has an element of self-confidence that is difficult to describe: something inextricably associated with intuition. He smiles while reflecting how some winemaking problems give him as much concern as experience. But he also confesses that, despite his 20 years of experience, he sometimes feels a chill in his spine when he has to make difficult winemaking decisions. He does not tolerate errors and is adamant on this point: ‘There is no excuse for faulty wines.’

Ultimately, Pérez only considers his wines a success if they are capable of ageing graciously. ‘I do not conceive of a wine that does not age,’ he explains. He will not tolerate any shortcomings in the balance and stability of his final wines, nor any oxidisation.

Pérez uses no manual; there is no formula for his wines. Everything is pure intuition. Each winemaking decision is based upon observation, reflection, a sense of the present and a vision of future development. One year’s decisions will not necessarily be the same as the next year’s, because as he explains: ‘There are wines that I do not understand; I need to learn much more.’ His thirst for learning is a never-ending process, and probably a sine qua non condition for excellence.

Perhaps his most amazing and inspiring feature is his reluctance to tell anybody what they should do. Understandably, many younger winemakers admire him; and although he is very generous in offering them help – you’ll often see him passing on advice in the spirit of friendship – he is not attempting to win converts to his winemaking style. His best lesson is: ‘Do not do what I do! Follow your own intuition!’ It works. Each one of his accomplished apprentices develops his or her own way of doing things.

Pérez is still very young, probably not yet at his peak, but he is already a memory maker, in the hearts and the minds of those who love making and drinking wines that have an inimitable identity.

Top wines from Raúl Pérez

Tasted by Pedro Ballesteros Torres MW and Sarah Jane Evans MW

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There’s much more to these northern Spanish wines than just Albariño, says Pedro Ballesteros Torres MW, who looks at the five main regions and their key varieties...

Most consumers associate Galicia with the Albariño grape from Ríax Baixas. Understandable, given Albariño’s success in the international market, but this singular view is far from the reality in this diverse region.

Galicia has a remarkable grape heritage that is structured around Albariño and two other key white varieties, Treixadura and Godello, but includes at least 15 other native grapes.

Indeed, Albariño is a parvenu in historic terms. Galician wines were imported and highly appreciated in the United Kingdom as long ago as the 14th century. These were not just from Albariño but a blend of varieties cultivated further inland in the Ribeiro denomination, including Treixadura, Loureiro, Godello, Torrontés and Lado.

Quick Link: View all 96 wines from this panel tasting

Such was the fame of those wines that, in 1579, the local government of Ribadavia set up a law to prevent frauds, protecting the wines’ indication of origin and accepted winemaking practices. Ribeiro was arguably the world’s first wine appellation.

Scroll down to see the results

Revival of the fittest

The dominant variety in Ribeiro is Treixadura. Forty years ago it was almost extinct, being replaced by the neutral and productive Palomino from Jerez, but thanks to a revival, it is now the flagship for the region.

Treixadura offers refined aromas, balanced acidity and, in the best terroirs, a complex, multi-layered finish. It is most often blended with Albariño and other varieties, rendering wines that often express an origin rather than varietal character.

Going inland within Galicia, where the climate is markedly more continental, Albariño and Treixadura become less relevant in blends, with Godello taking the lead role in the wines of Ribeira Sacra and Monterrei.

Once in Valdeorras, bordering Castilla y León, Godello becomes the almost exclusive variety. In 1974 Godello looked set to disappear – just 200 vines were left in Valdeorras. Thankfully, a research programme launched by Horacio Fernández saved it from extinction, and put Valdeorras back on the fine wine map.

A few years later, Rafael Palacios and other quality-minded producers surprised national and international markets with their Godellos of amazing finesse. Now the variety is widely planted in Ribeira Sacra and Monterrei too, where it gives rounder wines.

Other grape varieties play an increasingly interesting role on the Galician scene. Loureiro is distinguished because of its aromatic appeal; Caíño Blanco, a recent discovery by Terras Gauda, gives amazing minerality; and Doña Blanca, quite neutral, becomes very attractive in the hands of a few experts. Torrontés (nothing to do with the Argentinian Torrontés), Lado and Verdejo are other promising varieties.

The scores

96 wines tasted

Entry criteria: producers and UK agents were invited to submit their latest-release wines made from Galician grapes (excluding 100% Albariño) and blends (including no more than 50% Albariño) from the DOs of Monterrei, Rías Baixas, Ribeira Sacra, Ribeiro and Valdeorras

Exceptional 0

Outstanding 5

Highly Recommended 32

Recommended 52

Commended 6

Fair 1

Poor 0

Faulty 0

The results

Consumers should look beyond Albariño to Galicia’s other indigenous grapes, said our experts, who enthused over these fresh, delicate whites. Amy Wislocki reports:

Albariño is without doubt Galicia’s calling card when it comes to white wines – or wines in general, for that matter. But it’s time that wine lovers discovered the other varied whites from this region, urged our tasters.

‘We had a taste of Galicia stand at a consumer event recently, where we showed two Albariños, a white from Ribeiro and a red from Ribeira Sacra,’ said Beth Willard, a buyer for Direct Wines. ‘It was great to be able to use the success of Albariño, and customer knowledge of that grape, to encourage them to try the white Ribeiro – and they loved that full-bodied richness, fruitiness and complexity of the wine, and the freshness that was such a recurring theme in this Decanter panel tasting.’

‘Ribeiro is reliably the one Galician appellation that is absolutely wonderful,’ said Pedro Ballesteros Torres MW. ‘There were very few wines from here that didn’t show great personality. And it’s a personality built on style rather than varietal character. These producers are looking for delicacy and subtlety rather than power, and these wines have an incredible freshness and length.’

‘If people like the richness and ripeness of a fruity Chardonnay, and they like the acidity and zestiness of Sauvignon Blanc, then Ribeiro is a good place for those drinkers to go,’ said Willard. ‘It bridges both styles, but with more delicacy. They are not overly complex wines, but very appealing, drinkable and enjoyable.’

Another strong performer was Doña Blanca, a grape found mostly in the Monterrei sub-region. ‘Until now, it’s been considered supremely uninteresting,’ explained Ballesteros Torres. ‘But a growing number of producers are making very unique wines from this neutral variety, by playing with old vines, and/or lees contact.’

Sarah Jane Evans MW also praised the three examples of Loureiro: ‘It was a real discovery for me. You usually encounter it in blends, but here it made lovely, pale-coloured, low-alcohol wines with freshness and acidity that was reminiscent of Australian Riesling.’

The Godello grape came in for more criticism, from all the tasters. ‘It’s being seen as the next big thing in Spanish wine, and I think that’s completely misguided,’ Ballesteros Torres stated firmly. ‘It can excel in a few areas, but it’s very capricious and site-sensitive, and in most places it’s just boring. It lacks the fresh acidity of Treixadura [found in many Ribeiro whites], and it lacks the attractive bitterness of Albariño.’

The sub-region of Valdorreas also failed to impress. ‘It’s a bit warmer there, and it may be that the winemaking isn’t being done in the best way to preserve acidity,’ said Evans. ‘Quite a few of the wines weren’t as fresh or delicate as I would wish – think tinned yellow peaches rather than white peaches, for example.’

But the overall mood was high. ‘Galicia is a region I’ve always loved drinking,’ said Willard. ‘You’re getting complexity but you don’t have to work too hard, which is perfect at this price point. It’s all about the freshness and the fruit. Most wines are unoaked, and would be a perfect match for the region’s fantastic fresh fish.’

But you don’t necessarily need to drink them with a meal. ‘There were only a few notes where I used the word “gastronomic”, meaning that I wouldn’t drink it without food,’ said Evans. ‘These are lovely, very versatile and good-value whites – definitely something you should have in the fridge.’

Our tasters each pick their top 3 wines from the tasting:

Pedro Ballesteros Torres MW

Ballesteros Torres is the DWWA Regional co-Regional Chair for Spain and holds a master’s in viticulture and oenology among his qualifications. He is on the council of the Institute of Masters of Wine, the boards of the Spanish Tasters Union, and International Federation of Wine Journalists and was made a member of the Gran Orden de Caballeros del Vino.

Emilio Rojo, Ribeiro 2015

This wine bewitches the mind and the senses with its refinement and understated complexity. Its unique profile is not down to any grape variety or winemaking practice, but to an origin. If there was one ‘terroir wine’ in this tasting, this was it. Wonderfully distinguished and delicately characterful. An icon! 98 Drink 2018-2024

Attis, Atalante, Rías Baixas 2015

Multi-layered fruity freshness – almost Albariño-like, but with distinctive minerality and a very long finish. The confirmation that Caíño Blanco is a top white variety, with great potential. This has great appeal. 95 Drink 2018-2022

Atrium Vitis, Silius Bucce, Galicia 2015

An original style, built upon lees contact, but keeping a distinctive aroma. Creamy, dense, long: a provocative drink for adventurous wine lovers, with real consistency and complexity. A wine to keep an eye on – there is something special here. 92 Drink 2018-2023

Sarah Jane Evans MW

Evans is a DWWA co-Chair and an award-winning journalist who began writing about wine in the 1980s. She is a recognised expert in Spanish wine and a member of the Gran Orden de Caballeros de Vino. A past Chairman of the Institute of Masters of Wine, Evans divides her time between wine writing, education and judging.

Emilio Rojo, Ribeiro 2015

This is the joy of blind tasting – suddenly encountering an astonishing wine! It’s a wine that makes you want to grab the bottle and a glass and share it with the world. Singingly pure, with passion fruit acidity. A unique treasure from Ribeiro. 96 Drink 2018-2024

Attis, Atalante, Rías Baixas 2015

There is more to Rías Baixas than its lovely Albariños. The local Caiño Blanco grape is still not often found unblended. Here, it starts charmingly, then develops fine complexity, with a lick of refreshing acidity. Very long. 95 Drink 2018-2022

Finca Viñoa, Ribeiro 2016

Another treat from Ribeiro, showing the quality and potential of the Treixadura grape. This is a relatively new project, reviving the terraces of the Avia Valley. Beautifully balanced, with exotic fruit notes and thrilling acidity. 95 Drink 2018-2021

Beth Willard

Willard started her wine career in events and promotions at Hardy’s Canberra winery, Kamberra, and then worked for a small family producer, Capital Wines. Making the shift to Europe, she spent a year working at the Syndicat de Bordeaux before moving into buying. As part of the buying team for Direct Wines, her specialties Spain and Eastern Europe.

Pazo Tizón, Extramundi, Ribeiro 2016

I was really excited when this wine was revealed: I’ve loved it since tasting the first vintage, and great to see a top Ribera del Duero producer behind it. Ripe tropical, herbal fruit with a racy backbone and saline finish. 97 Drink 2018-2021

Emilio Rojo, Ribeiro 2015

A really unique and beautiful wine. It is fleshy and concentrated but still lively: it feels like it is dancing on your palate! Lemon sherbet, tropical fruit, wild herbs and a touch of white pepper on the finish. Delicious. 96 Drink 2018-2024

Lagar do Merens, Fermentado en Barrica, Ribeiro 2015

I don’t know this producer, so it was great to taste something new at this quality level. It’s rich but balanced with a creamy texture and flavours of green apple, peach and a lovely touch of pain d’épices. Needs to be enjoyed with food. 96 Drink 2018-2024

Galicia: the facts

Total area under vine (2016)

Rías Baixas: 4,048ha

Ribeiro: 2,232ha

Valdeorras: 1,351ha

Ribeira Sacra: 1,241ha

Monterrei: 467ha

Wine producers (red and white)

Rías Baixas: 6,031 growers, 170 wineries

Ribeiro: 5,782 growers, 115 wineries

Valdeorras: 2,721 growers, 18 wineries

Ribeira Sacra: 2,438 growers, 89 wineries

Monterrei: 381 growers, 24 wineries

Annual white grape production (2016)

Rías Baixas: 33.2 million kilograms

Ribeiro: 16.4 million kg

Valdeorras: 3.1 million kg

Monterrei: 3 million kg

Ribeira Sacra: 0.4 million kg

Galicia: know your vintages

2016 Widely considered an excellent vintage. Drink over the next five years.

2015 Variable because of issues with rot, but the average quality is quite high. Drink or keep.

2014 Challenging in Rías Baixas, but excellent in other appellations, Valdeorras in particular. Drinking well now.

2013 Cool, humid vintage. Most wines are uninteresting. Ribeiro is the exception, enjoying a great year. Drink.

Top Galician whites from the panel tasting:

See all 96 wines from the panel tasting

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The panel felt it was a tasting of two extremes. Pierre Mansour explained: ‘There were some truly great wines with real identity, class and intensity, but at the same time they were light and gentle in structure and alcohol. There were no poor or faulty wines, but too many neutral ones.’ Pedro Ballesteros Torres MW completely agreed: ‘Half of the wines tasted as if they were made in the winery – you couldn’t identify the grape or the terroir. They were just simple, fresh white wines that left me disappointed.’

Scroll down to see the best Albariño wines from the panel tasting

It felt like Albariño was ‘suffering from the Pinot Grigio effect’, continued Ballesteros Torres. ‘You make a good wine and people fall in love with it. So you decide to increase your production tenfold and expect people to still love it? It won’t happen.’ Sarah Jane Evans MW admitted that Albariño was in ‘a risky position’. Rueda had damaged itself already by diluting the character of its Verdejos and hunting lower prices, she explained. ‘And Albariño is well on its way to doing the same thing.’

Pinot Grigio to change your mind

Weather may have had a big part to play in the poor results, with many of the wines from the mediocre 2014 vintage. Mansour said the region’s climate ‘might explain some of the neutrality and dilution. It’s very wet there, and producers have to take care of their vineyards.’ He also conceded that those 2015s that were submitted were those that had not had any lees contact, ‘which makes a huge and positive difference in Albariño’.

Decanter travel guide: Galacia, Spain

But it wasn’t all bad. The best examples did impress the judges, who were not shy in waxing lyrical about their quality. Evans described them as ‘gloriously aromatic, with seductive and charming fruit’ and urged readers to snap them up. Mansour felt the wines were made to be drunk young – with the exception of the Pazo de Señorans 2008, which had the acidity, fruit and structure to enable it to age for decades yet.

While not many wines declared sub-regions on their labels, our panel felt that it was still too early to clearly differentiate between them blind. However, Evans said she detected a saline character in the wines from Val do Salnés, which Ballesteros said represented the ‘true identity of Rías Baixas Albariño’.

As a parting message to readers, Mansour advised them to ‘stick with good producers’, while Ballesteros Torres said at under £15, these wines represented ‘great, consistent value – and they’re better than Pinot Grigio!’

Best Albariño: Panel tasting results

González Byass has acquired one of the top wineries in the DO Rías Baixas in Galicia, Bodegas Pazos de Lusco.

Bodegas Pazos de Lusco is the first Rías Baixas winery for the González Byass portfolio, joining others owned by the company in key Spanish regions, including Rioja, Rueda, Jerez, Cava and Penedès.

‘With this acquisition, González Byass strengthens its portfolio and its position of leadership in quality wine production,’ said the company.

‘Rías Baixas is one of the most recognised white wine producing Spanish DOs globally.’ A fee for the deal was not disclosed.

• READ: Rías Baixas grows up?

Wines from Bodegas Pazos de Lusco include the Albariños Lusco – which was awarded a commended medal for the 2013 vintage in the 2015 Decanter World Wine Awards – and Pazao Pineiro.

Bodegas Pazos de Lusco is located in Salvaterra do Mino and the vineyard uses the traditional pergola method, making premium Spanish white wines.

The winery also includes a sixteenth century manor house, chapel, stables and lodge.

Other wineries owned by González Byass include Tio Pepe, Finca Constancia and Vinas del Vero. As well as producing Spanish wine and Sherry, the company also sells spirits.

If you're in the mood to treat yourself and want to see some of the best that Spain has to offer, then see scores, tasting notes and prices on six interesting new releases from the recent Wines of Spain tasting in London.

See below for six reasons why Spain’s reputation for fine wine is on the rise.

• Chivite Coleccion 125 Blanco 2012, DO Navarra (100% Chardonnay)

From Chivite’s Legardeta single estate in Navarra close to the Pyrenees, this is one of Spain’s most northerly vineyards at an altitude of nearly 600m altitude. Barrel fermented by the Bordeaux oenologist and consultant, Denis Dubourdieu, using a mix of new and second use oak barrels, this benchmark chardonnay is fresh, elegant and savoury. On the palate, stone fruits mingle with ripe melon and pear which are followed by a toasty finish. Expertly textured, with superb mid-palate weight and balance. The 2012 is only just starting to drink now and has a long life ahead of it.

93 points/100

Drink 2015-2023

Indicative price: From £24.95

Stockists: Waitrose and Berry Bros & Rudd (BBR)

• Chivite Coleccion 125 Reserva 2010, DO Navarra

A delicious 100% Tempranillo which also comes from the Legardeta estate. A bright lifted nose of raspberries and strawberries leads on to a sweet and supple red fruit profile on the palate. The focus is on precision and elegance rather than power, so the tannins are gentle and soft while the acidity is bright and balanced. Traditional tempranillo at its best.

91 points.

Drink 2015-2022

Indicative price: from £24.95 x one 75cl bottle

Stockists: Waitrose and BBR

• Martires 2013 Finca Allende DOCa Rioja 100% Viura

This extraordinary white hails from a tiny (1ha) vineyard in Briones in Rioja Alta with old vines (planted in 1970) on loamy clay soils. Yet the first debut vintage of Martires was only as recent as 2008. This richly cosseted Viura is barrel fermented in 100% new French oak which is evident in the colour and texture of the wine. Both the nose and palate are powerful and exotic with notes of peach, lemon sherbet, lime and honeysuckle, together with a saline savouriness. Yet the wine doesn’t lack freshness alongside its glossy richness and complexity. Long and powerful.

92 points

Drink 2015- 2023

ABV 14.5%

Indicative price: £95

Stockist: BBR.

• Calvario 2007 Finca Allende DOCa Rioja

Another Allende masterpiece from a south-east facing vineyard in Briones with a mix of gravel and red clay, together with stones that wouldn’t look out of place in Chateauneuf du Pape. The blend is 90% tempranillo, 8% garnacha tinta and 2% graciano from the classic 2007 vintage in Rioja. The primary fruit nose is scented and serious with a hint of sous bois bottle age. On the palate, the wine unfurls revealing layers of supple red fruits, plums, balsam and cigar box, all cloaked in ripe velvet-like tannins and medium body. Wonderful elegance, restraint and complexity.

94 points

Drink 2015- 2025

ABV 13.5%

Indicative price: £95

Stockist: BBR

• Corimbo 1 2010 Bodegas La Horra, Ribera del Duero

From the Roda stable, this stunning red is a joint venture with the Balbas brothers who provided access to some excellent old vineyards in Burgos in Ribera del Duero. It’s 100% tempranillo and is only the second vintage from this label in the UK after the 2009. The 2010 is altogether fresher with ripe cassis and black fruits, tealeaf, minerals and spice. The acidity is linear and balanced, while the firm tannins suggest this has good ageing potential. Alcohol weighs in at 14.5% but is not remotely intrusive. The same goes for careful oak handling in US and French barrels.

90 points

Drink 2016-2026

ABV 14.5%

Price £45

Stockist: Hedonism Wines

• La Comtesse de Pazo Barrantes 100% Albarinho 2011, Marques de Murrieta, DO Rias Baixas

Oak aged Albarinho might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but this was right on message for my palate. Murrieta are best known in Rioja, but this comes from its 12 hectare estate in Rias Baixas’ Salnes Valley. I picked out pear, citrus and orchard fruits together with cream and honeysuckle. Also lovely richness, vibrancy and density. Needs food and best decanted if you plan to drink it sooner rather than later.

91 points

Drink 2015-2022

ABV 13.5%

Indicative price £36.99

Stockists: ND Wine Merchants (Swansea), The Tasting Room (Bath), Planet of the Grapes.

Written by John Stimpfig

In less than 16 years, Javier Zaccagnini and Mariano Garcia have achieved their aim – to make a wine in Ribera del Duero equal to the world’s best. Sarah Jane Evans MW meets the duo and discovers the secrets of their success

Aalto at a glance

Appellation Ribera del Duero

Vineyards Owns or rents 110ha, made up of 200 plots, none bigger than 1ha, sourcing from nine villages, and some new sites including in front of the winery

Grape variety Tempranillo, known in the region as Tinto Fino, with a thicker skin and a smaller berry. Verdejo planted for a white wine project Soils Vineyard sites reflect Ribera del Duero’s diversity: clay, limestone, sand and pebbles

Production Aalto’s production has been steady at around 200,000 bottles, but is now increasing to 250,000. Production of PS is no more than 10,000 bottles

Exports 70% of production exported

How has Aalto made it to the top so quickly? The plan in 1999 was to ‘make a wine that in the space of 15 to 20 years should reach the quality of the best wines in the world’. Many would say it has already achieved this ambitious aim. Three facts are significant in explaining the rapid ascent: old vines, insider knowledge and the remarkable duo behind the project.

To start with, the old vines. By seeking out plots of mature bush vines, Aalto never had to go through the usual process of planting vines and having initial years of moderate success while waiting for the wines to mature. Here comes the insider knowledge. Aalto winemaker Mariano Garcia had been in charge of the wines at Vega Sicilia for 30 years, even before the advent of the current owners. Meanwhile, managing director Javier Zaccagnini had been the director of Ribera’s regulatory body, the Consejo Regulador, for six years. Between them, they knew exactly where to look.

Meeting the pair, they seem an unlikely combination for success. Zaccagnini has an MBA, speaks four languages, and is a man bounding with nervous energy, constantly alive with ideas. Classical music is the soundtrack to his life and endless car journeys, and his partner is a professional musician. Garcia is tall and long-limbed, with the glamour of a mature rockstar. With his white hair and silver beard, plus a gold chain round his neck, the word debonair could have been invented for him. If you attend a vertical of Vega Sicilia, you’ll be tasting many of Garcia’s wines.

The two became friends working in Ribera del Duero, when Zaccagnini would bring visitors to Vega Sicilia. By that time Garcia had already established his own project in Castilla y León, Mauro, one which is now run by his son Eduardo. His other son Alberto is running the Astrales winery in Ribera del Duero. When Garcia left Vega Sicilia, Zaccagnini’s proposal that they start again, in the same region, to make the best wines using the best vine material, in the way that he wanted, was too good to turn down.

In the beginning

Zaccagnini’s achievement has been to build a business where Garcia felt free to develop his ideas and follow his own way of working. At dinner, he stresses Garcia’s significance: ‘Mariano is 80% of our success.’ The fact that we are all talking over a very good dinner is a reminder that Garcia likes to make time for a really good meal. He’s recognised throughout Spain for his seriousness about food: his office in the Mauro winery is covered with plaques from organisations recognising the importance of his contribution to gastronomy. His wine philosophy owes a good deal to his pleasures in the kitchen: ‘Don’t manage the wine too much. Intervene at little as possible. The same goes for chefs.’

Garcia was ‘born in the vineyards’, as his great grandfather’s family had land in Castille. He was encouraged to taste as a young man, and was attracted to the creativity in winemaking. Zaccagnini’s own start in the world of wine was less promising. True, he was born in one of the three great Sherry towns – El Puerto de Santa Maria – and his grandparents had a bodega. However, neither of his parents drank. It wasn’t until he was 29 that ‘I suggested to my brother that we do a wine appreciation course.’ He’d qualified as an agricultural engineer and, being ‘ambitious’, ran not one but two businesses simultaneously. By then he had two daughters but never saw them. ‘I was on the point of a heart attack. One day, driving home, I was so stressed I stopped the car, lay back, looked at the roof and thought if I don’t stop working like this I’ll be dead.’ He moved into a gourmet food business, bringing him closer to the world of wine.

In 1992 Ribera’s fledgling Consejo Regulador, then just 10 years old, appointed him as director. It urgently needed a blast of the Zaccagnini management magic. For instance: ‘We had 600 growers producing fruit. At vintage they had to fill in paperwork for every load. By the end of the harvest we had 30,000 chits to process. It took the consejo till March each year to add up them up!’ His solution: a credit card for the growers.

A consejo is not always the most exciting place to work. But it was magic for Zaccagnini. He ended up with the dream of having a bodega of his own.

Why call it Aalto? Because it’s a short, internationally pronounceable word, and one that has the real advantage of appearing top of the list in any guide.

Careful selection

Aalto is a pure expression of Tempranillo. It might seem a curious choice to commit to one variety when with a more extreme climate than Rioja there’s a risk of losing the crop. Garcia is unperturbed, and loves the character of the wine: ‘Even St-Emilion [with Merlot] lacks the subtlety of Tempranillo.’ He explains, ‘The Tempranillos in Rioja, Ribera, Toro, are all the same genotype. But they are unlike the Ribera Tempranillo, which has adapted to our different climate.’

The key to Aalto’s complexity is the choice of the best fruit from across Ribera del Duero’s diverse terroirs. The top villages include Roa, La Horra, La Aguilera, Fresnillo and Moradillo. People were territorial, set on keeping cuttings within each village so that today there is much variation between villages. Zaccagnini says, ‘We could do a Burgundy style classification here in Ribera if we wanted.’

Certainly there’s a lot to be said for the Burgundian comparison: turn the map of Ribera 90˚ and it shows the same long, narrow shape and spread of villages. Indeed, Peter Sisseck of Pingus, Hacienda Monasterio and Psi is part of a new long-term project with the Consejo to map these soils. At Aalto, each plot is harvested and handled separately, with different oak treatments. Aalto spends usually 20 months in oak, 50% new French, the other 50% one- to three-year-old French and American. The small-production PS (Pagos Seleccionadas) sees 24 months in 100% new French oak. Both PS and Aalto are blended after ageing.

In good company

How then do they differ from Vega Sicilia? In one sense they are not directly comparable, as neither Valbuena nor Unico is 100% Tempranillo. The former has a little less than 10% of Merlot and Malbec; the latter, a similar dollop of Cabernet Sauvignon. The Vega Sicilia wines also undergo a different ageing regime. Valbuena spends 30 months in barrels and vats of different ages and origins, with a further two years in bottle. Unico has 10 years of ageing before release, while the Reserva Especial carries on the tradition of blending across three vintages. These are wines built for the long haul.

Aalto and PS, by contrast, both 100% Tempranillo, with between 50% and 100% new oak, are an obvious new generation, altogether more concentrated, bolder and more direct wines. Liquorice, dark fruits, and fine oak dominate the palate. Perhaps the better comparison is with Alión, a Vega Sicilia project started in Garcia’s time, which is a bold, modern statement of 100% Tempranillo with 100% new French oak. Both share the same approach of superb ripe fruit, with a similar focus on selection and concentration. Both are made for drinkers who like their wines younger. Yet Aalto is still a baby compared to Alión, which was launched 13 years before, and it promises plenty.

After Aalto’s first decade, it acquired new backers in the form of the Masaveu family, which owns the Fillaboa estate in Rías Baixas, among others. Zaccagnini is very comfortable: ‘They understand the nature of the wine business and are very hands-off. Everything is reinvested into the very best equipment for the winery.’ Their support means that building has begun again on the discreetly positioned winery, as well as the continued investment in plantings of carefully selected vines for decades ahead.

Looking forward to the next 15 to 20 years, Garcia and Zaccagnini will have to think about a succession plan, for a new team to build on their achievement. Surely no successors will ever be as interesting, diverting and contrasting as Garcia and Zaccagnini – or as good company. Whoever it is, though, can be sure that Aalto has been created on that most secure foundation, fine old vines.

Written by Sarah Jane Evans MW

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In less than 16 years, Javier Zaccagnini and Mariano Garcia have achieved their aim – to make a wine in Ribera del Duero equal to the world’s best. Sarah Jane Evans MW meets the duo and discovers the secrets of their success

Aalto: a timeline

1978 Mariano Garcia (above) founds Mauro winery in Castilla y León

1992-1998 Javier Zaccagnini is director of the Consejo Regulador, the regulatory board for Ribera del Duero

March 1998 Garcia leaves Vega Sicilia, where he has worked for 30 years

February 1999 Aalto founded, to make two wines: Aalto and, in exceptional years, a small production of PS (Pagos Seleccionados: ‘selected vineyards’)

2000 Planted 12ha in Quintanilla de Arriba, around the site for the winery

2011 First commercial launch of Zaccagnini’s Sei Solo

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In less than 16 years, Javier Zaccagnini and Mariano Garcia have achieved their aim – to make a wine in Ribera del Duero equal to the world’s best. Sarah Jane Evans MW meets the duo and discovers the secrets of their success

Aalto: Sei Solo

This is Javier Zaccagnini’s own project, launched in 2011, from 60-year-old wines in La Horra. As he says, ‘Aalto was Mariano’s project; I wanted one of my own.’ His focus is on developing a Burgundian-style Tinto Fino with more elegance and less power than is common in Ribera del Duero. As a result there is no new oak.

The small-scale production is fermented in four small 20hl vats; the alcoholic and malolactic fermentations are spontaneous; no press wine is added to boost the concentration. ‘I wanted to forget about structure and power; that’s not my style.’ The wines are matured in 228-litre and 600-litre, two-year-old French oak barrels.

The final blend creates two wines: Sei Solo, of which there were 1,200 bottles in 2011, and Preludio, 4,000 bottles. And the name? Stemming from his great love of music, it comes from six solo masterpieces for the violin, by Bach.

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In less than 16 years, Javier Zaccagnini and Mariano Garcia have achieved their aim – to make a wine in Ribera del Duero equal to the world’s best. Sarah Jane Evans MW meets the duo and discovers the secrets of their success

Five of the best from Zaccagnini & Garcia

Aalto, PS 2004

18.5/20pts (95/100pts)

Fascinating insight into ageability of PS (Pagos Seleccionadas) in a very good year. Gloriously aromatic, floral, and black fruits. Bright, fresh, complex, with a clean, mineral edge. Still so young, a sign of the potential of Ribera del Duero.

Price: £80 (in bond) City Wine Collection, Turville Valley Wines

Drink 2015- 2025

Alc 15%

Sei Solo 2012

18.5/20pts (95/100pts)

Glorious mineral elegance. A big wine with a warm alcohol depth. Intense dark fruit with a long, finely textured, intense finish.

Price: £36.66 (ib) Justerini & Brooks

Drink 2016-2024

Alc 15%

Aalto, PS 2011

18/20pts (93/100pts)

A vividly powerful Ribera del Duero, showing what this region is capable of using old vines, and thick-skinned Tinto Fino. Dense and spicy, with black fruits, and liquorice and fennel complexity. Oak gives fine smokiness. Flinty, mineral finish.

Price: £49-£89.60 Christopher Keiller, Fine & Rare, Hedonism, Justerini & Brooks

Drink 2018- 2030

Alc 15%

Aalto 2011

17/20pts (90/100pts)

Spicy, glossy Tinto Fino, showing a fine-tuned midpalate, with some slightly drying, dusty tannins. An enticing richness of quality fruit (suggesting sweet blueberries) with a savoury seasoning. The oak is a feature, but the quality is fine and balances the richness. Very big with a warm ripple of alcohol. 50% new oak – 85% French oak and 15% American.

Price: £49-£89.60 Christopher Keiller, Fine & Rare, Hedonism, Justerini & Brooks

Drink 2015-2020

Alc 15%

Sei Solo, Preludio 2012

17/20pts (90/100pts)

Boldly aromatic with black fruits, fine leather and liquorice. Signs of fine oak barrels lead the palate. Dense, excellent fruit matched by spicy palate. Four-square structure. Fermented in small oak vats in a corner of the winery and aged in oak barrels for 18 months. A very promising beginning to the project.

Price: £16.67 (ib) Justerini & Brooks

Drink 2018-2020

Alc 15%

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The Albariño of Spain’s Rías Baixas was once a wine to drink young, but now it will last for a decade. What changed, asks Margaret Rand?

There is something slightly perverse, one might think, in abandoning a whole range of grape varieties to concentrate on just one – and then focusing on ways of giving that one grape a variety of flavours. But that’s markets for you. if Albariño is what sells, Albariño is what growers will grow, and Loureiro, Treixadura, Caíño Blanco and the rest – not to mention the still more obscure red varieties – must sit at the back and not complain. Albariño is fortunate to have won: left to themselves, the growers of Rías Baixas might well prefer to grow hybrids.

Hybrids, actually, are probably the best adapted to the local weather. in nearby santiago de Compostela, they tell you, it either has rained, is about to rain, or is raining. ‘in 1896, mildew killed 99% of the vines here,’ says Eulogio Pomares Zarate, owner of Zarate. ‘The vineyard went from 25,000 hectares to 250ha. We didn’t start using copper sulphate against mildew until the 1920s. Phylloxera couldn’t survive in our acidic, sandy soils, but we had 25 years of mildew.’ hybrids are tougher when it comes to mildew; some 3-4 million litres of hybrid red are grown every year, he says, but it doesn’t get bottled.

What does get bottled is Albariño. spain is mad for Albariño. And spain is right: it tastes of salt and ripe citrus with a touch of apricot. it’s aromatic and mineral, structured and creamy, long and long- lived. The best wines can live – and improve – for 10 years and taste tight, mineral and honeyed at the end of it. it’s like grown-up Viognier with acidity and without the blowsiness. Twenty years ago it was regarded as a wine to drink young and without too much thought; now it’s at a very different level. What happened?

A damp landscape

Rías Baixas is right on the Atlantic, tucked in over the bit of Portugal that makes Vinho Verde, where Albariño becomes Alvarinho. The land looks exactly the same both sides of the border: it’s a granite landscape, all pine and heath, morning glory and blue hydrangeas, and eucalyptus groves that fade to a ghostly grey behind the frequent curtains of rain. The rain is sudden and local, and clears as quickly as it starts. smallholders grow their vines on high pergolas over cabbages, just as they do in Portugal: the pergolas give enormous crops but have the virtue of keeping the grapes well away from the damp ground.

Large crops used to be considered a good thing, when the wine was light and for early drinking. Now training on wires is an alternative, but wires are certainly not driving the pergolas out. You get one gramme per litre less acidity with wires, reckons Emilio Rodriguez, technical director of Terras gauda, and half a per cent more alcohol, because the grapes get more sun and more ventilation: ‘it’s a lower crop, but better quality.’ But he also says that finding differences of aroma and flavour between the two training methods is more difficult. ‘The most important thing is that in a complicated vintage with poor ripening, you get better results with vines trained on wires,’ he says.

This evening-out of vintage variation in an erratic climate, by bringing the worst years up to the level of better ones, is one of the achievements of better viticulture here. Climate change has helped, too: all the growers are very pleased with climate change. ‘Twenty-five years ago,’ says Christina Mantilla, winemaker at Pazo San Mauro, ‘we were getting wines with 10% alcohol and 12g of acidity. Now we’re getting 12% alcohol and 9-10g of acidity. We love climate change. But it’s better viticulture and winemaking too, and greater vine age.’ ‘It used to rain all summer,’ agrees winemaker Javier Peláez of Marqués de Vizhoja. ‘It used to be almost impossible to get grapes to ripeness, they were so acidic. Now we have to pick earlier. Drought used to be unheard of, but now it can happen.’

Regional differences

The Rías Baixas DO was established in 1988. It’s divided into five areas: the Salnes Valley, which is effectively entirely Albariño; O Rosal, Soutomaior, Ribeira do Ulla and Condado do Tea, where you might find small percentages of Treixadura, Loureiro, Caíño Blanco and others in the blend. But everywhere, if it says Albariño on the label, it must be 100% Albariño. So naturally you want to make your Albariño different from everyone else’s.

The regions have their differences. Condado do Tea is the warmest and driest region, and gives slightly riper grapes with slightly less malic acid. The average temperature over the year is 15oC in Rosal, whereas in the Salnes Valley it’s 14.2oC. Rainfall is pretty much the same in all, at 1,600– 1,800mm per year. Some vineyards are more inland than others, but the real differences are those of latitude: the Salnes Valley is the northerly limit for ripening. This is where you find the real acidity. Condado do Tea is in the south, on the Portuguese border, and if you listen closely I swear you’ll hear them pronounce Albariño as Alvarinho.

The differences in climate may seem small, but they have implications for winemaking, and for flavour. The cooler your site, or the year, the higher your acidity will be, and the more likely you’ll be to consider doing a bit of malolactic fermentation to soften it. But not too much: everybody wants purity and minerality in their wines, and most don’t want too much of the buttery, lactic notes that come with the malolactic. So they may only do it in certain years, or for a small percentage of the blend. There are more ingenious ways of lowering acidity: cold stablisation will bring it down by about one gramme per litre. (Some producers still add shellfish shells to the soil, to raise the pH, which is very low here, at around five. Adding oyster or clam or mussel shells – which are in abundance, since farming them is big business in the rías, the steep-sided fjords that give the region its name – can raise it to eight or nine. That in itself won’t affect the acidity of the wine, but it will certainly increase the ability of the vine to take nutrients from the soil.) Skin contact – a ‘cold soak’ for several hours before pressing – will edge the acidity down by another gramme or more, while giving you greater aromas.

Divergent styles

Wine styles diverge in other ways, too, encouraged by greater ripeness. You can opt for unadorned austerity: just the wine, with nothing fancy. ‘I stopped skin maceration in 2000,’ says Eulogio Pomares Zarate. ‘I want terroir expression, not extra power and exuberance.’ Palacio de Fefinanes abjures skin contact because it doesn’t want the tannins that go with it; nor does it want the extra aromas. You can have some wood ageing, which doesn’t sound like a great idea for an aromatic, mineral grape. Or you can go for long lees ageing, with or without lees-stirring. You can also make it sparkling, though it looks as though other grapes do this better. You can even try making it sweet, though you won’t get the DO for that. The main choice seems to be oak or lees ageing; and oak-aged Albariño has a limited market. A few restaurants like it because they think it offers more food-matching potential, but most Spaniards prefer it unoaked; or so I’m told.

Yet it’s far from being a revolutionary idea. ‘Until the DO started, all Albariño in Rías Baixas was made in wood,’ says Eulogio Pomares Zarate. ‘I’ve still got some 550-litre chestnut barrels here, though I stopped using wood in 1999. The wine used to be fuller-bodied with more colour, and there was more skin maceration. Old chestnut barrels were the usual thing.’ Now it’s more likely to be French or even American oak. Agro de Bazan’s Limousin cuvée (the oak these days is actually Alliers, says export manager Jesus Alvarez) uses two-year-old, 500-litre barrels, which is not very frightening; Palacio de Fefinanes’ 1583 is fermented in oak and does the malo in oak, some of which is new, and about 10% of which is American. The former wine gains muscularity but no oak flavour; the latter is distinctly oaky, and more square in shape in the mouth.

Personally, I don’t go so much for the oaked wines. But long lees ageing can be interesting; and ‘long’ can be three months, or 30. Pazo Baion’s standard 2012 has four months’ battonage; its 2006 Condes de Alberei had three years on the lees, and was bottled unfiltered. The first is structured, deep and precise; the second is all buttered tangerines and silk, very complex. An extra six years makes a difference, too, of course, but long lees ageing increases a wine’s longevity in a way that oak ageing does not. It keeps it fresher for longer, and enables a slow development of complexity. And now that Albariño sees itself as a serious wine, longevity is important.

A top Albariño will improve for a decade. To keep it longer than that is probably pushing it, though as knowledge of specific sites increases, so will the number of exceptional wines. Jesus Alvarez of Agro de Bazan suggests 18 months after the harvest is the ideal age to start drinking it, and it doesn’t seem to go through a closed phase. Not that perverse, then.

Written by Margaret Rand

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The Albariño of Spain’s Rías Baixas was once a wine to drink young, but now it will last for a decade. What changed, asks Margaret Rand?

5 great buys from Rías Baixas

Bodegas Zarate, El Palomar Albariño 2012

18.5/20pts (95/100pts)

Named after the dovecote in the vineyard, this was almost overbearing in its early youth but is settling down now. It’s fermented in a big old vat but there’s no oak flavour. Lots of structure and concentration. A searching wine, precise and detailed, with complexity.

Price: £23.10 Indigo Wines

Drink 2014-2020

Alc 12.5%

Terras Gauda, La Mar Caíño Blanco 2011

18.5/20pts (95/100pts)

No, not Albariño this one; instead one of the region’s rarer grape varieties. This is concentrated and muscular, with a touch of tannin, and huge character. A big, tight, salty, mineral wine.

Price: £27-£30 Harvey Nichols, Joseph Barnes, Les Caves de Pyrène

Drink 2014-2020

Alc 12.7%

Bodegas del Palacio de Fefiñanes, Albariño 2013

17.5/20pts (91/100pts)

Good ripe citrus fruit and no creaminess from malolactic. Pure, precise, nice weight, lovely elastic texture, salty, aromatic fruit, and plenty of character. Very expressive and graceful.

Price: £14.95-£17.99 Lupe Pinto, Martinez Fine Wines, The Wine Society, Waitrose

Drink 2014-2019

Alc 12.5%

Condes de Albarei, Albariño 2012

17.5/20pts (91/100pts)

Very salty and tight, lovely texture, very fine and elegant with good structure; pure, long, with a typical bitter edge to the finish which adds bite.

Price: £11.95 The Wine Reserve

Drink 2014-2018

Alc 12.5%

Coto Redondo, Señorio de Rubios Albariño 2012

17/20pts (90/100pts)

Salty and mineral nose and palate with very pure, ripe and aromatic fruit. Lovely balance and texture, and again, that nice bitter bite at the end.

Price: £10.75 Yorkshire Vintners

Drink 2014-2018

Alc 12.5%

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Is there a grammar of wine? Is there, in other words, a system or set of first principles through which the mass of 'wines' can be articulated and comprehended? The analogy isn't an exact one, but ampelography comes closest to making the metaphor work.

Nothing sends me more regularly back to my reference books than the need to understand grape varieties. Over the last decade or more, though, the insights of genetics have reshaped the varietal horizon, and made the old books redundant. We’ve all, consequently, become a little nervous about definitive varietal pronouncements, in case the ground had moved under our feet. What if Viognier turned out to be genetically identical to Fiano, or Merlot proved to be Sangiovese’s aunt? And what do we call Zinfandel this week?

That’s why an almost audible sigh of relief will go up across the wine world on Thursday: at last the wine world can lay its hands on the reference grammar we all need. Wine Grapes by Jancis Robinson MW, Julia Harding MW and Dr José Vouillamoz (all 2.66 kg of it) is a magnificent achievement: colossally informative, illuminating and intriguing. No one but Jancis Robinson could have marshalled such a project, galvanizing and coordinating the efforts of the international wine community. The genetic researches of Dr Vouillamoz and his colleagues provide the book’s wow factor, while the painstaking scrupulousness of Julia Harding surely lies behind its seamless grafting of scholarship and academic rigour to informative, descriptive prose.

Once I’d ripped the cellophane off the book’s fabric-coated box, I couldn’t resist road-testing it with a couple of recent queries. I’d been astonished recently by the almost overwhelming minerality of the 2010 ‘La Mar’ from Terras Gauda in Rías Baixas (85% Caiño), yet also puzzled by that variety’s appearance on the labels of other red wines from the same area. Ah, I see: those reds should be labeled Borraçal.

A summer visit to Piedmont left me simultaneously beguiled and perplexed by the extraordinary Ruchè, a musk-perfumed yet grandiose dry red: surely it had some Moscato Rosa parentage? Apparently not – though in this case, the space between the lines implies, its full DNA story still awaits telling. The beauty of Mtsvane and Rkatsiteli blends from Georgia recently blipped up on my radar (more of this in a week or two), so I was keen to find out more about each. The book’s descriptions of each of these impressive varieties chimed with my experience, and I was intrigued to learn that the DNA of Rkatsiteli make it a close relative of local wild vines.

The big stories in the book, though, are the lengthy accounts of the most polyphiloprogenitive varieties or, as the authors call them, ‘founder varieties’. Some fourteen varieties, too, are given family trees or pedigree diagrams, which usefully schematize the relationships between them, though it’s a pity that a significant section of the most important of these, that of Pinot, disappears into the book’s gutter. (Those for the Wisconsin hybrid Brianna and the German hybrid Prior are really of interest to geneticists and grape breeders only, and you’d have to be Swiss to take much interest in Completer and Prié.)

We all, note, need to revise our terminology, and stop muddling our mutations and our varieties. A sobering lesson of Wine Grapes is that La Tâche 2009 (offered by Justerini & Brooks recently at £2,416 a bottle) is in fact made from the same single variety as Tesco’s Linoti Pinot Grigio (on offer online for £29.94 per case). What we used to consider two separate varieties “are simply skin-colour variations of the same variety produced by a particular type of mutation” (p.XV). There is no more perplexing aspect of the book’s insights than this, and I still find it hard to grasp how a bottle of tangy, tart, taut Côtes du Jura Savagnin can really be made from ‘the same grape variety’ as Olivier Humbrecht’s luscious Herrenweg de Turkheim Vieilles Vignes Gewurztraminer, produced just 180 km away. Grape-vine genetics is, for drinking purposes, a highly theoretical branch of knowledge.

And the price? The book notionally costs £120, but in fact is available for £75 (plus postage if you live outside the UK) via http://winegrapes.org/special-offer/, an astonishing £45 difference. (Amazon.co.uk wants £78.) Bookshop owners, look on and weep. Personally, I would rather the book had excluded the faintly anachronistic Viala and Vermorel colour plates, and cost £49.95, a price I’m sure would still have made ample profits for everyone involved. There will be an electronic edition next March. Let’s hope it will be tagged less graspingly.

By the way, Fiano and Viognier have nothing to do with each other. But Merlot is Trebbiano’s aunt. And, Zinfandel producers, get ready to re-label your wines …Tribidrag.

Written by Andrew Jefford

Albariño is the mainstay of quality wines produced in Spain's Rías Baíxas and Portugal's Vinho Verde. KITTY JOHNSON profiles a variety that loves rainy days and wet weekends.

If I went to live in Galicia, the first thing I’d do besides eating fresh fish every day would be to open an umbrella shop at Santiago de Compostela airport. In Spain’s rainiest region, this could be a real money-spinner and I happen to know there isn’t one there already. Albarino grape growers and winemakers in this northwest coastal corner of the country have also found a way to profit from the 1.5–2m of rain the region sees on average every year – they plant a variety that positively thrives in it.

The origins of the Albariño grape, or Alvarinho as it’s called across the Portuguese frontier where it makes single-varietal versions of tongue-prickling Vinho Verde, are shrouded in mythology. Whether it is indigenous to Galicia, was brought from France by Raimond of Burgundy in the 11th century, or introduced by Cluny monks in the 12th, is unknown. What is certain, however, is that it has found a site it really likes, separated from the rest of Spain and surrounded by sea and mountains, in the warm and wet DO Rias Baixas (pronounced ‘ree-as by-shuss’).

• Wine Travel – Portugal Road Trip

Albariño Viticulture

It’s a viticultural area that has had to expand in response to demand and a fourth sub-region was added to the group in 1996. The terrain shifts from flat lands in the cooler north at Val do Salnes and hilly terraces in the west at O Rosal, to the more mountainous Condado do Tea in the east and the hilly, new addition, Soutomaior. The gradient of the slopes affects the choice of planting system, although the majority of producers use the traditional pergola technique. Chosen for the beneficial shading it offers the grapes during periods when the clouds part, the system is now losing ground, especially in Condado de Tea, to the alternative, silvo (a variant of the Geneva double-curtain system). Denser planting is possible with this method, as is the increasingly popular option of mechanical harvesting. Either way, with buckets of rain around each year, the grapes are kept off the ground to reduce the risk of rot. The grape’s thick yellowish-green skin also provides an effective raincoat.

Under these conditions, the Albariño prospers, bringing in permitted yields of 71.5 hectolitres per hectare (roughly twice the national average for other varieties). For a thick-skinned, many-pipped berry that doesn’t produce a huge amount of juice, a high volume of grapes is vital to keep up with demand. Vintage variations are inevitable and while 1999 was a bumper crop, 2000 saw a drastic drop in grapes harvested of between 40 and 50%.The best examples are 100% of the variety but each region permits blends using varying percentages of all or some of the region’s lesser-known and lesser quality choices: Loureiro, Treixadura, Torrontés and Caiño Blanco. These guys are not key players, but between them they add up to little more than 5% of total plantings in the DO. Whether it’s part of a blend or a single varietal sample, the proud Galicians don’t like to part with too much of their cherished Albariño. Around half of the wine produced is kept for home consumption (the lucky locals use it to wash down their limitless supply of freshly caught fish), but happily exports are on the up, with the UK, US and Germany showing most interest.The wines are aromatic and often slightly spicy with appley, peachy flavours and mouth-watering acidity. They can be either floral and citrussy or apricoty, richer and more honeyed. To extract more colour and flavour from the grapes, some winemakers swear by skin contact before fermentation. Others find the extra richness comes from lees contact afterwards.

In general, with exports on the increase there’s a growing desire to vinify using oak. Most producers now make a barrel-fermented and/or matured alternative, which spends up to six months (but typically only three or four) in new American or French oak casks. Many of the wines made by this technique suggest that this kind of oak ageing, especially in American wood, is a mistake. The grape’s glory is in its unique, delicately aromatic, varietal characteristics, most of which are lost by a hefty helping of vanilla from the oak. What is more surprising in a wine that has been made and marketed for knocking back with the local fresh fish and seafood is its propensity for ageing, a characteristic that can be attributed to the wine’s naturally high acidity. This enables it to maintain fruity freshness while it develops a golden colour and richer flavour. A line-up of the last five vintages from producer Palacio de Fefinañes in Cambados demonstrated the concentration of flavours that can develop with time in the bottle. The wines transformed from delicate, floral, aromatic and grapey to honeyed, spicy, apricoty and even slightly smokey.

A similar intensity can also be achieved by leaving the wine on lees in the tank for longer. At Pazo de Señorans, the president of the Consejo Regulador of Rias Baixas, Marisol Bueno, produces a special selection (Seleccion de Añada Blanco) wine that is held in tank for anything up to three years. Using carefully chosen grapes from the vintage, the result is a delicious, fruity, smokily spiced, mature Riesling-style mouthful. Albariño’s Spanish roots are acknowledged by the Portuguese who, in Ponte de Lima county, refer to the grape as Galego (after the local dialect of Galicia). Nevertheless, it has secured a place in northwest Portugal, where from Monção and the newer sub-region of Melgaço come fruitier, more alcoholic (13% rather than 9–10%) and age-worthy versions of the often criticised, spritzy ‘green wine’ Vinho Verde. At around 40 hectolitres per hectare its yields are considerably lower than in Spain, probably due to less rain and the use of a different clone. With a recommended three-year optimum drinking period, it is often heralded as Portugal’s most serious white wine.

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Albariño Future

So what does the future hold for this rain-loving wonder grape? Although both Spanish and Portuguese plantings and global interest is increasing, Albariño is pricey and its wines are still fairly exclusive. The Burgundian-style feudal system of land ownership in Galicia means it’s hard for the smaller growers or producers to think too big, but no doubt winemakers will continue to follow trends and experiment with different approaches to vinification. The biggest exporter, Martín Códax, even tried a late-harvest version in 1996, when weather conditions permitted it. On balance, producers should focus instead on the winning formula of lees ageing to create an added richness while respecting the grape’s varietal distinction. And if you’ve got a recent vintage bottle at home, keep your hands off it. Find a good spot for it in the cellar and come back to it in a year or two. Chances are your patience will be rewarded.

Albariño Characteristics

It likes high-acid, granitic and sandy soils – and lots of rain. Its thick-skinned, yellowish-green berries ripen early.

In Spain

Grown in Galicia in northwest Spain, its flavours range from floral, aromatic, citrus and peach to richer honey, spice and apricot.

Portugal

Grown in the Minho in north-western Portugal, its flavours are more green apple and citrus.