Mar de Frades: Experts in Atlantic Albariño

Mar de Frades has been producing Albariño in Spain’s Rías Baixas for close to forty years. Led by winemaker and technical director Paula Fandiño, its research explores how Albariño responds not only to different soils, climates and vineyard sites but how these factors affect what is brought to each glass.

As Fandiño puts it, ‘For a long time, the global perception of Rías Baixas Albariño was pigeonholed into a single profile: a young, aromatic, fruity white wine meant for immediate consumption. I was driven by the desire to prove that there is no single Albariño, but rather multiple expressions shaped by altitude, orientation, bedrock type, and surrounding vegetation’.

The many expressions of Albariño

The wines produced from Albariño vary greatly depending on proximity to the sea, geology, exposure and vineyard management. Mar de Frades uses its contrasting sites to explore these differences before deciding on how best to work with them.

Albariño’s historic heartland lies in the Salnés Valley, where its mild, wet maritime climate and granite soils provide the setting for lively, vibrant wines with a saline character. Their expression reflects the landscape, from the hillsides to the coastal lowlands.

Valiñas and Lobeira illustrate the diversity within the Salnés. West-facing Finca Valiñas is a terraced hillside with vines planted more than half a century ago, producing wines with ‘granitic nerve and sharp tension with outstanding ageing potential’, believes Fandiño. Its Albariño vines use traditional overhead pergola training. Lobeira faces north and is more sheltered by woodland and the surrounding hills, she says, creating wines with a ‘more balsamic, complex and wild profile’.

Expressions change again inland in Ribeira do Ulla, where schist-based soils and the river influence marks the sites differently from coastal Salnés. Greater temperature variation also plays a part, with differences Fandiño identifies in the wines: ‘The interaction with rock type completely alters the wine’s texture and structure’.

For Fandiño, granite is associated with verticality, tension and a marked chalky, tactile salinity. The schist at Finca Monteveiga is associated with greater structure, weight on the palate and a darker, stonier more ‘mineral’ profile.

Mar de Frades research also follows the warmer Minho river basin, where Albariño expresses itself through riper stone-fruit characteristics peach, apricot and nectarine. The coastal lowlands offer another expression, sometimes described as fresher and more vibrant.

A shift in perspective

Studying these differences has changed how Mar de Frades makes its wines. As Fandiño explains, ‘It has completely transformed our philosophy. We shifted from a general blending approach to precision winemaking and minimal intervention by plot.

I learned that winemaking shouldn’t impose a technical style on the grape but rather equip each vineyard with the process that best respects and amplifies its sense of place’.

The findings have been gathered in a book entitled ‘Experts in Atlantic Albariño’, contributing to the wider study of the variety and its diversity. For Fandiño and her team, the work continues in the vineyards and winery, exploring what each site can bring to the wines.

Learn more about Mar de Frades

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