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  • Heaven Sent Rias Baixas Albariño

    Heaven Sent Rias Baixas Albariño

    "This is Volnay meets Cote de Brouilly—super fresh, focused, with red fruits and wild aromatics of flowers and herbs." — José Pastor, Importer

    After weeks on the road covering nearly every corner of Spain, I walked away with a lot of epiphanies, but none surpassed the thrill I had during my introduction to Alberto Nanclares. His traditional pergola-trained Albariños from Cambados, the seaside village with vines just meters from the Atlantic, marked a massive shift in my understanding of what descriptors like crystalline and acid-driven can truly mean in the context of Spanish white wine.

    Today, I'm happy to offer Alberto Nanclares' 2018 Rias Baixas Albariño.

    Legendary Spanish importer, José Pastor, has been the gateway to so many new Spanish discoveries, like Envínate and Luis Rodriguez, to name a couple. Nanclares follows a philosophy in the vines and the cellar that Pastor has used as his foundation in building such a critical and impressive portfolio of ultra-attentive, thoughtful growers-producers.

    In 1992, Alberto Nanclares and his wife chose to leave their native Basque country and settle in this extreme Atlantic Ocean setting in the beautifully green and lush northwest Galicia region. Organic viticulture is no easy task in Rias Baixas, as the high humidity and constant rainfall have meant conventional farming with chemicals, and extremely high yields are the overwhelming norm. There was a gradual shift over the years for Nanclares to get his parcels farmed the right way, through painstaking labor.

    If you, like me, put Roulot's Meursault at the top of your wish list, you will be pleasantly surprised by what you'll find from this naturalist in the most historic and traditional village of Rias Baixas. Like Roulot's Meursault, "Nanclares" wows the senses with that unmistakable mineral spring-like purity and acid-driven frame that levitates on the palate. This parcel of granite bedrock with sandy topsoil captures the very most ocean-influenced personality of Albariño, with white peach and white flowers melding with faint almond notes on the finish. Aging in a combination of older French tina barrels and stainless steel.

    La Tinaja de Aranzazu is sourced from a west-facing parcel of 30-plus-yr-old Albariño vines located in the village of Meaño - here, on sandy granitic soil next to Nanclares' home. Fermented in a single tinaja (amphora) with aging on fine lees for 9 months. A more textural style to pair with the celebrated, rich seafood of Galicia.

    Minato da Rana Tinto is sourced from a very steep vineyard of 100-plus-yr-old-vines planted on granite at 600 meters. 60% Mencía, 30% Garnacha Tintorera, with 10% Godello & Palomino. Whole cluster fermented in 600L open-top wood fermenters for 20 days. Then to 500L French barrels for malolactic and 9 months aging.

    Posted by Max Kogod
  • Rias Baixas Golden Feat: Rodrigo Mendez & Raul Perez Goliardo A Telleira

    Rias Baixas Golden Feat: Rodrigo Mendez & Raul Perez Goliardo A Telleira

    This summer's wine route through Spain and Portugal was all about increasing my familiarity with producers I've been enamored with for a long time. Of course, traversing three weeks through land steeped in such rich history is going to also provide some revelations. In all, there was no single introduction to a wine that made things stand still like they did one night at the must-visit Mesón A Curva restaurant in Galicia when their owner blind-poured a glass. The reveal: a joint project between Rodrigo Mendez & a guy you may have heard of named Raul Perez, their Goliardo a Telleira Rias Baixas Albariño.

    Today, I'm very happy to offer the 2017 Forjas del Salnes Goliardo a Telleira Rias Baixas Albariño for $78 per bottle. 

    Only 1,000 bottles were produced of the 2017 Goliardo a Telleira. Like production numbers may lead you to believe, this is as unique and singular a wine as I've ever had from Galicia.     Val do Salnes, the birthplace of Albariño, is the coolest of the five subzones of Rias Baixas. With average temperatures here of 60 degrees between April and October, one would expect these Albariños on pure granite to showcase the most heightened sense of tension and salinity. But, the most profound trait in Goliardo is centered around multi-layered textures and that ultimate elusive chase to find density without weight.

    Rodrigo and Raul approached this micro-production cuvée with an eye on deep experimentation. This particular parcel of 1973-planted Albariño vines come from an incredibly sandy section over granite. Grapes see partial skin-contact fermentation, with malolactic blocked to preserve the verve that's so indicative of these sandy soils that mirror a beach setting. A single foudre is used for fermentation and wine is moved into stainless steel for several months prior to bottling.

    The orchard fruit tones of Albariño veers heavily into the under-ripe white pear register, with meyer lemon and orange peel building a greater presence on the mid-palate. The real magic of Goliardo comes in the beautifully incisive finish that simultaneously embodies a more rounded frame of acidity that's, at once, mouth-watering in its freshness, but with driving waves of layered complexity that continue to change and linger long after swallowing.

    Galician winemakers are more focused than ever before on wines that compel with their levity instead of power. Goliardo strikes me as the one project that's found a way to instill both of these virtues with a balance that inhibits any one descriptor from standing front-and-center. If Grand Cru white Burgundy perhaps exemplifies this balancing act the very best, I'd highly suggest you get acquainted with north-west Spain's boldest feat.
    Posted by Alexander Rosen
  • Raul Perez World-Beater: Mic Drop Rias Baixas Albariño Atalier

    Raul Perez World-Beater: Mic Drop Rias Baixas Albariño Atalier

    This summer's trip to Spain and Portugal was nothing short of epic. The goal was simple: to get ultra-intimate and familiar with the people and places that have awoken me to the new potential here. Select wineries from both countries are emphasizing a greater focus on freshness, site-specificity, and restraint. It truly felt like a small-scale renaissance as I visited my top producers over three weeks in nearly every pocket of the Iberian Peninsula. When it came time to decide where to start with my first offer from the trip, the choice was clear.

    It would be unfair in telling you to stop being surprised by Raul Perez releases, as I'm continually left dumbstruck. For the life of me, I don't understand how one producer can redefine the Spanish white wine category across a spectrum of regions and varieties. His most elusive (and monumental) wine is simply known as Sketch - an Albariño sourced from a 0.5 hectare parcel of old vines in Rias Baixas. At $100+ per bottle it's worth its weight in gold, but upon release, rumors swirled in New York that his "other" Albariño was going to be the proverbial mic drop moment for the variety.

    At $28 per bottle, I'm happy to offer Raul Perez's new release, the 2018 "Atalier" Rias Baixas Albariño, sourced from un-grafted and pre-phylloxera vines. 

    No reason to mince words, the 2016 release of Atalier was the most requested wine I've ever offered. Sadly, the majority of requests were not able to be met due to limited availability of the wine in California. Today, I've made sure that does not happen again. 

    Atalier comes from two parcels of Albariño vines in the Cambados area of the Salnés valley, located in the southern portion on the northwest tip of Spain. As Raul's greatest influence is top white Burgundy he takes every step possible preserve cut and delineation in Albariño while also pushing for maximum ripeness and flavor development. All easier said than done. The key steps are harvesting very late and then blocking malolactic fermentation - this allows for superb ripeness, but eliminates the more viscous and creamy elements of Albariño that don't appeal to him (or us!). Aging is in older French foudre, the large format both working to preserve tension while providing some oxygen exchange to soften texture.

    Salinity and white peach are apt descriptors for Albariño from the extreme coastal vineyards of Rias Baixas. In the case of Atelier these tell-tale notes are met with oyster shell, lychee, ginger, almonds, and white flowers. And that driving sense of salinity and sea breeze is captured brilliantly in the long finish.

    Raul completely redefines what a mineral-driven Spanish white is capable of, showing depth and the nuance I've come to expect from elite Chablis and Côte de Beaune Chardonnay. In 2014 Raul Perez was named best winemaker in the world from the German publication, Der Feinschmecke. And in 2015 the same honor was bestowed by France's Bettane & Desseauve.

    Much like the Bourgogne Blanc cuvées from Roulot, Vincent Dancer, and Pierre Yves Colin-Morey, Raul Perez's Atalier simply over-delivers is a big way. Finding Spanish whites that harness all of the inherent richness of the sun-soaked terrain is no tall task, but revealing them in a frame where harmony and balance steal the show is something entirely unique to this man.
    Posted by Alexander Rosen

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