Albariño

Time on the lees

Toni Alonso left his Quinquenio 2018 on its fine lees in steel for five years and bottled it in 2023. Veigamoura sits in the Condado do Tea, in the south of the Rías Baixas, and makes Albariño only. The young Veigamoura 2024 also rests on its fine lees and is bottled unfiltered.

Most Albariño is drunk within its first two or three years. We think the grape does more at the table after long lees ageing, and with fish in a butter sauce we would always open one that spent at least a year on its lees.

The Fariña brothers' Albariño

Attis belongs to Robustiano and Baldomero Fariña and lies in the Val do Salnés, the coolest part of the Rías Baixas and the one closest to the coast. Their single-variety Albariños differ mainly in how long, and in what, they rest on the lees:

• Attis Lías Finas 2024: vines over 50 years old facing west to the Atlantic, six months on fine lees in steel tanks and large oak casks. On the nose, apricot above all.
• Attis Nana 2023: from the family's oldest vineyard, facing north-west, kept twelve months on fine lees in the same French oak barrel.
• Attis Embaixador 2022: a single half-hectare site with 60-year-old vines, 24 months on fine lees, twelve of them in a granite vessel and twelve in steel, 5,733 bottles.

Under the sea, on the skins, with sugar left in

After ageing, bottles of the Attis Mar spend six months in crates twelve metres down in the Atlantic, beside the mussel beds of the rías. Whatever falls outside the DO rules, Attis bottles under the name Sitta. The Sitta Maceración 2022 ferments for 15 days on its skins in steel, and the Sitta Doliola 2019 stays ten months on its skins in 380-litre clay amphorae.

Attis bottles its sweet Albariño in half-litre bottles. For the Sitta Dulce Nana 2022 the grapes dry for two months on a single layer of heather. For the Sitta Pereiras 2023, from a 0.4-hectare plot, fermentation is stopped at 8 to 9 percent alcohol.

Albariño beyond the Rías Baixas

Near Requena, at 700 metres on white limestone, Pago de Tharsys has one hectare of Albariño, grown from Galician plant material and replanted in 1985. The Vendimia Nocturna 2024 was picked during the night of 8 to 9 September.

In the Ribeiro, Coto de Gomariz makes the Gomariz X Albariño 2023 with 5 percent Treixadura, from the terraced O Taboleiro plot near Leiro. In the Ribeira Sacra, Algueira blends Albariño with Godello and Treixadura for its Finca Cortezada, and we hold vintages going back to the Finca Cortezada 2009.