Albarino
75cl * 12.5% ABV * Rias Baixas, Spain
Produced from 100% estate-grown Albariño sourced from the warmest plots of Finca Tremoedo vineyard in Vilanova de Arousa - just a kilometre from the sea. The vines are around 35 years old, and are pergola-trained in sandy granite soils. Grapes are hand-harvested into 17kg crates. All free-run juice, with long skin contact (12 hours) and fermentation in stainless steel using indigenous yeasts. The wine is aged on fine lees for 8 months.
Recently tasted by the Taurus crew and here's what we had to say:
There is a bright acidity that helps this wine to be so very clean and crisp. There is a lemon character that is first both on the nose and palate but on the palate almost feels like lemon sherbet. Apples abound and as the wine warmed in the glass the delicate character of white peach expressed itself. there is a not unpleasant saline finish.
17 Points, Tamlyn Currin, 2024, Jancisrobinson.com, 'Delicate and pretty, going from fennel flowers to lemon verbena to lemongrass to lemon sherbet. Gentle but surprisingly deep plashy pools of acidity. Orange citrus and tamarind at the core, that over 10 days softened to buttery saffron. Like all the really good, complex Albariños, it has high-frequency intensity. It feels as if its heart has been hand-drawn with a soft graphite pencil. After being open for days, it just finished on peaches and apricots, as if giving up pretending to be about anything else.'