Ribeiro

In the Avia valley

On the slopes of the Avia valley, Coto de Gomariz farms 30 hectares, on gentle hillsides and on terraces known here as socalcos. Ribeiro sits where the Miño meets the Avia and the Arnoia, between the coast of the Rías Baixas and the gorges of the Ribeira Sacra. The climate is Atlantic with a continental streak, with plenty of rain and a long growing season.

The soil is called sábrego, a mix of granite sand and clay, with slate underneath in some plots. In the hot, dry year of 2022 the high water table at Gomariz kept the vines healthy.

Who makes the wine at Gomariz

Ricardo Carreiro Ameijeiras began replanting the old vineyards in the 1970s, and the first bottle of Coto de Gomariz followed in the 1980s. Today winemaker Inma Pazos runs the cellar. Grapes are picked into 18-kilo crates and fermented with wild yeasts, some wines age in clay amphorae, and bottling happens on flower days of the biodynamic calendar.

Only native grapes grow at Gomariz. Among the whites, Treixadura leads, usually blended with Godello, Albariño, Loureira and Lado. The reds are Sousón, Brancellao, Caiño, Mencía, Carabuñeira and Ferrol. In the Ribeiro we would open a red first, precisely because the valley is known mainly for white wine.

• Abadia de Gomariz 2022: half Sousón, with Brancellao, Ferrol and Mencía, from young vines in plots such as Vilerma and O Pazo.
• Coto de Gomariz Brancellao 2022: pure Brancellao from the A Ferreira plot, a year in a 250-litre clay amphora, 290 bottles.
• Coto de Gomariz Finca o Figueiral 2022: 70 percent Treixadura with Godello, Albariño, Loureira and Lado. The plot has been on record since the 13th century and was replanted in 1978.
• Gomariz X Godello 2023: pure Godello from the terraced O Taboleiro plot near Leiro, aged in steel.

Before the DO

Ribeiro became a DO in 1932, under the Spanish wine statute of that year, as one of the first areas in Spain. Coto de Gomariz traces its origins back to the tenth century, hence its motto «Dende o Século X».

In the Middle Ages the monasteries drove winegrowing in the valley, San Clodio first among them. In good harvest years Ribeiro was shipped to England and Flanders and sold there as the most expensive wine. In 1592, 127 casks of Ribeiro were loaded at the port of Ferrol for the Americas.