There is Gold in Them Hills: Pioneering Ribeira Sacra
If anyone has earned the right to call their wine hand-crafted, the new pioneers of Ribeira Sacra (which acquired DO status in just 1996) must be at the head of the queue. However, even before the creation of this idyllic and isolated Galician DO, Algueira’s Fernando González and Ana Perez had begun purchasing and restoring vineyards abandoned here by the end of the 19th century. Phylloxera, followed by recession and civil war had brought rack and ruin to these once-proud, ancient vineyards. Thanks to growers like Algueira, new energy has bloomed in Ribeira Sacra.
The first step to crafting wines of genuine authenticity was to rebuild the terraces, or solcacos, that were carved by the Romans into the rocky valleys banking the Sil, Miño and Bibei Rivers. Not only have the founding Algueira team painstakingly resurrected these abandonados, but they have also demonstrated their land and practice as capable of producing wines that bear comparison with the very best of Europe. From humble beginnings, González and Pérez now tend 20 hectares of vines. Today they are joined by son Fabio González Riveiro and young winemaker David Pascual.
“These [Ribera Sacra reds] are lively, graceful wines, with the same sort of aromatic loveliness and lissome body that draws people to Burgundy and Barolo.” Eric Asimov
The vineyards are based in Ribera Sacra’s prestigious Amandi subzone, where vertiginous slopes of slate and schist rise like staircases from the river Sil. In places, these terraces are so dizzyingly steep that they make the hillsides of Côte-Rôtie look like nursery slopes. Algueira’s white varieties shine in the cooler Ribeira del Sil sub-region on soils of gneiss and quartz. Due to the extreme nature of the sites, cultivation is painstakingly slow. Now largely biodynamic, these practices sometimes mean the numbers don’t add up, however, González believes the wines deserve every effort.
Mencía is Algueira’s paragon variety, producing aromatic wines of silky balance, clarity, and mineral resonance. González was also an early champion of Ribeira Sacra’s native grapes, and to this day makes Spain’s most exciting Merenzao, a variety with close links to Jura’s Trousseau. Algueira’s more sheltered, gneiss and quartz-laden slopes are devoted to Godello, Albariño and Treixadura, which yield some of Galicia’s most limpid, crystalline whites. Whatever the variety, every sip taken from these wines has the potential to profoundly change many drinkers’ perceptions of Spanish wine.
At five years of age, the 2017 is perfectly pitched with scents of black raspberry fruit, liquorice root, mountain herbs, dried flowers and a gentle waft of spice. The slow-building structure and latent power are elegantly offset by deep-rooted freshness and mineral-wreathed length. According to Jesús Barquín and the authors of ‘The Finest Wines of Rioja and Northwest Spain’, this is a wine that “… has more in common with a fine Côte de Nuits than with the image most people have of Spanish reds.” Take that as gospel!
Fermented with natural yeasts only and aged entirely without oak, it’s a bright and crystalline mountain Godello, with fleshy citrus and white-fleshed fruit across a background of wild herbs and salty savouriness. Closing with a spirited phenolic lick, it’s a wine born of a unique place; precise, low-yield viticulture and traditional, low-input winemaking.
The result is an extraordinary, unique wine with a complex perfume of finely detailed fruit characters that recalls wild cherry steeped with blood orange, rose and a tincture of wild herb. There’s more colour and muscular density from the solar year, yet it remains super lucid and tender and finishes long, leaving behind a lick of elegant tannin and a perfume of sweet red berries and smoky minerals. This is one tasty Bastardo! Expect more power than a Jura red and don’t be afraid to serve it with grilled rib-eye.
From a cool and late Atlantic-influenced vintage, the stellar 2021 blends 40% Godello, 40% Albariño and 20% Treixadura. The fruit is co-fermented with indigenous yeasts and aged for six months in stainless steel to preserve the pristine citrus fruit and minerality this site gifts. The resulting wine is worthy of its spectacular setting: textured and savoury with ripe citrus and salty lemon notes, a piercing grapefruit spine and a sea spray finish. If you’re going to pull the cork anytime soon, consider giving it an energetic decant and laying the table with crispy, porky treats. That said, we can see this aging for at least five years, developing more complexity and weight as the years go by.
The idea is to craft an immediately enjoyable introduction to Algueira’s Mencía offering. Welcome to charm central. It opens with a soft explosion of red and blue fruits and mixed floral aromas, leading to a vibrant, textured, racy palate with fresh summer fruit and graphite minerality rippling throughout. The texture is Pinot-like but with a lovely, anise spice and graphite-scented finish that is so Algueira. Fresh, vibrant, juicy and low in alcohol, this is really delicious.
“[Algueira’s] wines and spectacular vineyards have been praised by The New York Times and Le Figaro, so are better known internationally than in Spain itself. The wines of Algueira are considered by many the finest and most elegant in Ribeira Sacra.” The Finest Wines of Rioja and Northwest Spain, Jesús Barquín et al.
“Year in, year out, their Merenzao is the star of the portfolio and among the best wines from the appellation.” Luis Gutiérrez, The Wine Advocate
Country
Spain
Primary Region
Ribeira Sacra, Galicia
People
Winemakers: Fernando & Fabio González Riveiro
Availability
National