Rías Baixas

Val do Salnés: the coastal heartland, with the sharpest, saltiest Albariño.

The cool, wet lowland around Cambados is where Albariño is most itself: green apple, lemon and peach, a stony finish, and a salty edge. If you only try one sub-zone, start here.

The cool, wet lowland around Cambados is where Albariño is most itself: green apple, lemon and peach, a stony finish, and a salty edge. If you only try one sub-zone, start here.

Albariño: peach, lemon and sea salt; fresh, aromatic and made for seafood.

Thick-skinned, so it copes with the rain. Crisp and floral when young; lees ageing or old vines give a rounder, creamier wine that can age for years.

Thick-skinned, so it copes with the rain. Crisp and floral when young; lees ageing or old vines give a rounder, creamier wine that can age for years.

Pulpo á feira (Galician octopus) with young Val do Salnés Albariño.

Boiled octopus with olive oil, paprika and potatoes. Albariño's high acidity and salty edge lift the oil and match the sea flavour.

Boiled octopus with olive oil, paprika and potatoes. Albariño's high acidity and salty edge lift the oil and match the sea flavour.

Celebration: Pazo Señorans Selección de Añada or Do Ferreiro Cepas Vellas.

The region's top local wines: small production, years of ageing or 200-year-old vines. Worth the splurge as a toast.

The region's top local wines: small production, years of ageing or 200-year-old vines. Worth the splurge as a toast.

Caíño Tinto: the rare local red; light, perfumed and fresh.

Rías Baixas is almost all white, but a few growers bottle this native red in a light, Burgundy-like style. A talking-point bottle.

Rías Baixas is almost all white, but a few growers bottle this native red in a light, Burgundy-like style. A talking-point bottle.

The other colour: a Caíño red from Forjas del Salnés or Zárate.

A rare native red in a light, perfumed style. Few friends at home will have tasted one.

A rare native red in a light, perfumed style. Few friends at home will have tasted one.

Condado do Tea: the warm inland south, with riper, rounder Albariño.

Along the Miño river on the Portuguese border. Sunnier and drier than the coast, so peachy, tropical fruit, softer acidity and more body. Often blended with Treixadura.

Along the Miño river on the Portuguese border. Sunnier and drier than the coast, so peachy, tropical fruit, softer acidity and more body. Often blended with Treixadura.

O Rosal: terraced slopes by the Portuguese border, Albariño blended with local grapes.

Warm, south-facing vineyards near the Miño mouth. Wines are riper and rounder than Salnés but keep good acidity; the local blend adds Caíño Blanco and Loureiro to Albariño.

Warm, south-facing vineyards near the Miño mouth. Wines are riper and rounder than Salnés but keep good acidity; the local blend adds Caíño Blanco and Loureiro to Albariño.

Coast versus inland sets the style: tart and salty, or ripe and round.

The cool, wet coastal lowland of Val do Salnés gives the sharpest, most mineral wines. Moving south and inland to Condado do Tea and O Rosal, summers are warmer and drier, so fruit is riper, acidity softer and alcohol higher.

The cool, wet coastal lowland of Val do Salnés gives the sharpest, most mineral wines. Moving south and inland to Condado do Tea and O Rosal, summers are warmer and drier, so fruit is riper, acidity softer and alcohol higher.

Lees-aged Albariño: rounder, creamier and built to keep for years.

Some producers leave the wine on its lees for extra months or years, in tank or in oak. The result is more texture, a little bread and nut, and the ability to improve for several years.

Some producers leave the wine on its lees for extra months or years, in tank or in oak. The result is more texture, a little bread and nut, and the ability to improve for several years.

Extra months on the lees give a creamier, rounder Albariño.

Producers such as Martín Códax (Lías), Fefiñanes (III Año) and Pazo Señorans keep wine on its fine lees in steel, not oak, for more texture and slower development.

Producers such as Martín Códax (Lías), Fefiñanes (III Año) and Pazo Señorans keep wine on its fine lees in steel, not oak, for more texture and slower development.

Native yeast and skin contact: the region's small low-intervention edge.

Albamar ferments every wine with native yeast, Forjas del Salnés makes Cos Pés on its skins, and Zárate works organically and biodynamically with wild yeast.

Albamar ferments every wine with native yeast, Forjas del Salnés makes Cos Pés on its skins, and Zárate works organically and biodynamically with wild yeast.

The off-beat side: native-yeast Albariño, skin contact and Caíño reds.

A small group of young-minded Salnés growers use native yeasts, skin-fermented Albariño and light, Burgundy-inspired reds from Caíño. Rías Baixas is almost all white, so the reds are rarities.

A small group of young-minded Salnés growers use native yeasts, skin-fermented Albariño and light, Burgundy-inspired reds from Caíño. Rías Baixas is almost all white, so the reds are rarities.

A tangle of tiny plots: entry bottles blend, parcel bottles are the exception.

Most growers farm small plots, so large brands buy from many families and entry wines blend plots, and sometimes sub-zones. Single-parcel bottlings are the exception.

Rías Baixas is a region of smallholders. Val do Salnés alone is home to most of the DO's growers, and the plots are tiny. Martín Códax, the Cambados growers' co-operative, draws on around 300 families, who hand-harvest into small crates. Xurxo Alba of Albamar buys from about ten vineyards on top of his own 2.5 hectares. The result is that most entry-level Albariño is a blend of plots, and a widely distributed standard bottling has been described as mixing fruit from Val do Salnés, O Rosal and Condado do Tea. That makes for consistent, fresh wine. The exceptions are the bottlings that name one parcel, such as Fillaboa's Finca Monte Alto or Pazo Señorans' Los Bancales plot. Reading the back label for the sub-zone and the producer's description is the quickest way to tell a blended brand from a parcel wine.

Fillaboa Finca Monte Alto: a rare estate single-vineyard Albariño from Condado do Tea.

Fillaboa's Albariño Selección from Finca Monte Alto is racy with granite minerality, and its importer calls it one of very few single-vineyard estate wines in the DO.

Fillaboa sits at Salvaterra de Miño in Condado do Tea, the warm southern sub-zone beside the Miño river. The name means 'the good daughter' in Galician. The Masaveu family bought the estate in 1988, and the property includes a tasting facility and an art collection in a 15th-century Romanesque castle. The estate grows only Albariño and uses only its own grapes, never bought-in fruit. Its standard Albariño is a clean, fairly priced introduction to the warm south. The Albariño Selección from Finca Monte Alto is the parcel wine: its importer describes it as racy, with granite minerality, and as one of very few single-vineyard estate wines in Rías Baixas. It is a good bottle for comparing a single parcel with the blended style from the same estate.

Pazo Señorans Selección de Añada: Los Bancales plot, years of ageing before release.

A Meis estate with a 16th-century manor. The Selección de Añada is a dense, mineral Albariño released years after the harvest.

Pazo Señorans is a 16th-century country estate in Meis, in Val do Salnés near the sea. Marisol Bueno and Javier Mareque bought it in 1979, and their early Albariño work helped lead to the creation of the Rías Baixas DO about a decade later. The standard Albariño is a good, fairly priced introduction. The Selección de Añada is the estate's statement: a single plot, Los Bancales, behind the manor house, planted on sand and granite at 70-80 metres, with vines over 45 years old. After fermentation the wine stays on its lees in tank for at least thirty months and then sits in bottle for at least five years before release. The producer says it can still develop for at least another decade. It is dense, mineral and tightly coiled, and priced like a collector's wine.

Do Ferreiro Cepas Vellas: Gerardo Méndez's 200-year-old vines.

The flagship of a founding Rías Baixas family. A dense, structured Albariño from a pre-phylloxera Salnés vineyard, made to age.

Gerardo Méndez was one of fourteen founding growers when the Rías Baixas DO was created in 1988, and he made his first wine in 1973. His estate, Do Ferreiro, in Val do Salnés looks out on the Ría de Arousa. The standard Do Ferreiro Albariño shows what the producer means by saline minerality and purity of fruit. Cepas Vellas, the flagship, comes from a vineyard said to be over 200 years old and pre-phylloxera, the oldest documented Albariño vines in the region. It is a denser, more structured wine than the standard bottling and is built to age. Manuel Méndez has been winemaker since 2015, Encarna Méndez runs daily operations, and the estate has since added further single-vineyard and single-soil wines. His nephew Rodrigo Méndez founded Forjas del Salnés.

Old vines and years on the lees are what the top prices pay for.

Parcel wines come from very old vines and are given time before release. They are denser and longer-lived than the fresh bottlings and are the region's collector tier.

Rías Baixas's best wines combine two things: old vines and patience. Gerardo Méndez's Cepas Vellas vineyard in Val do Salnés is described as over 200 years old and pre-phylloxera, and Zárate's El Palomar comes from vines planted in 1850. Forjas del Salnés bottles Finca Genoveva from 180-year-old Albariño and Caíño in Barro. Small crops from such vines give dense fruit and firm structure. The second ingredient is time: Pazo Señorans keeps its Selección de Añada on the lees for about two and a half years and then holds it in bottle for around five more before release, and Fefiñanes' III Año also spends extra time on its lees in tank. Lees ageing adds texture and slows the wine's development. When a price jumps above the fresh style, it is these two choices you are buying.

Albamar: Xurxo Alba's Cambados cellar; spontaneous ferments and site Albariños.

A family farm turned grower-producer in 2006. O Sebal, Pepe Luis, Finca O Pereiro and 69 Arrobas are separate Albariños; Caíño 'O Esteiro' and the Blanc de Noirs 'Albino' are the curiosities.

Xurxo Alba (say 'SURE-sho') makes his wines in Cambados, in a cellar beside his parents' restaurant and small shop selling local artisan foods. His family has farmed Albariño in Val do Salnés for generations, and he began bottling under his own name in 2006 after finishing his oenology studies. He owns about 2.5 hectares, is planting more, and buys fruit from around ten small vineyards whose growers he asks to farm as naturally as the region allows. All the wines ferment with native yeasts. The range reads like a map of the sub-zone: Rías Baixas Albariño as the standard, then separate bottlings such as O Sebal, Pepe Luis, Finca O Pereiro and 69 Arrobas, plus reds from Caíño and Espadeiro, a Caíño Ancestral and a Blanc de Noirs called Albino. Start with the standard Albariño, then compare one of the site wines.

Forjas del Salnés: Goliardo Caíño and Cos Pés show the region beyond fresh Albariño.

Rodrigo Méndez's reds helped revive red winemaking in Rías Baixas. Goliardo Caíño is a pale, perfumed red; Cos Pés is Albariño fermented on its skins.

Rodrigo Méndez set up Forjas del Salnés in the mid-2000s, naming it after the iron business his grandfather started; his uncle Gerardo Méndez owns Do Ferreiro. He farms roughly twelve hectares in Meaño, Sanxenxo and Barro, some owned and some rented. Leirana is the flagship Albariño: saline, vibrant, picked fully ripe and kept without malolactic fermentation. Leirana Finca Genoveva comes from 180-year-old vines in Barro, as a white and as a red that is 100% Caíño fermented with whole bunches. Goliardo A Telleira is a riper single-vineyard Albariño, and Cos Pés is Albariño fermented with its skins. The Goliardo reds from Caíño, Loureiro and Espadeiro are made in a Burgundy-inspired way with very light extraction, and Raúl Pérez has advised on them. They helped revive red winemaking in a region that makes almost only white.

Cool, wet Atlantic air and granite soils give Albariño its salty zip.

Rías Baixas is damp and green, with ocean mists keeping summers cool. Slow ripening keeps acidity high and aromas fresh, and the granite soils are linked to the stony, mineral note in the wines.

Rías Baixas is damp and green, with ocean mists keeping summers cool. Slow ripening keeps acidity high and aromas fresh, and the granite soils are linked to the stony, mineral note in the wines.

In the glass: High acidity, peach and citrus aromas, a mineral and salty finish

Vines are trained high on granite-post pergolas to fight rot.

Most vineyards grow on pergolas (parra). The open canopy lets air move through the bunches and keeps them off the damp ground, which cuts mildew in a rainy climate. Albariño's thick skin helps too.

Most vineyards grow on pergolas (parra). The open canopy lets air move through the bunches and keeps them off the damp ground, which cuts mildew in a rainy climate. Albariño's thick skin helps too.

In the glass: Healthy, clean fruit with fresh acidity in a wet climate

Coast versus inland sets the style: tart and salty, or ripe and round.

The cool, wet coastal lowland of Val do Salnés gives the sharpest, most mineral wines. Moving south and inland to Condado do Tea and O Rosal, summers are warmer and drier, so fruit is riper, acidity softer and alcohol higher.

The cool, wet coastal lowland of Val do Salnés gives the sharpest, most mineral wines. Moving south and inland to Condado do Tea and O Rosal, summers are warmer and drier, so fruit is riper, acidity softer and alcohol higher.

In the glass: Salnés: green apple, lemon, salt. Condado do Tea and O Rosal: peach, tropical fruit, rounder body

Old vines and years on the lees are what the top prices pay for.

Parcel wines come from very old vines and are given time before release. They are denser and longer-lived than the fresh bottlings and are the region's collector tier.

Rías Baixas's best wines combine two things: old vines and patience. Gerardo Méndez's Cepas Vellas vineyard in Val do Salnés is described as over 200 years old and pre-phylloxera, and Zárate's El Palomar comes from vines planted in 1850. Forjas del Salnés bottles Finca Genoveva from 180-year-old Albariño and Caíño in Barro. Small crops from such vines give dense fruit and firm structure. The second ingredient is time: Pazo Señorans keeps its Selección de Añada on the lees for about two and a half years and then holds it in bottle for around five more before release, and Fefiñanes' III Año also spends extra time on its lees in tank. Lees ageing adds texture and slows the wine's development. When a price jumps above the fresh style, it is these two choices you are buying.

In the glass: Density, texture and a long finish; bottles that improve for 5-10 years

A tangle of tiny plots: entry bottles blend, parcel bottles are the exception.

Most growers farm small plots, so large brands buy from many families and entry wines blend plots, and sometimes sub-zones. Single-parcel bottlings are the exception.

Rías Baixas is a region of smallholders. Val do Salnés alone is home to most of the DO's growers, and the plots are tiny. Martín Códax, the Cambados growers' co-operative, draws on around 300 families, who hand-harvest into small crates. Xurxo Alba of Albamar buys from about ten vineyards on top of his own 2.5 hectares. The result is that most entry-level Albariño is a blend of plots, and a widely distributed standard bottling has been described as mixing fruit from Val do Salnés, O Rosal and Condado do Tea. That makes for consistent, fresh wine. The exceptions are the bottlings that name one parcel, such as Fillaboa's Finca Monte Alto or Pazo Señorans' Los Bancales plot. Reading the back label for the sub-zone and the producer's description is the quickest way to tell a blended brand from a parcel wine.

In the glass: Consistent, fresh blends at entry level; individual character only in parcel bottlings

Most Albariño is cool-fermented in steel and bottled young.

The classic style is fruit-driven and unoaked: stainless-steel fermentation and early bottling keep the peach, lemon and salt up front.

The classic style is fruit-driven and unoaked: stainless-steel fermentation and early bottling keep the peach, lemon and salt up front.

In the glass: Fresh, aromatic, high-acid wine for drinking young

Extra months on the lees give a creamier, rounder Albariño.

Producers such as Martín Códax (Lías), Fefiñanes (III Año) and Pazo Señorans keep wine on its fine lees in steel, not oak, for more texture and slower development.

Producers such as Martín Códax (Lías), Fefiñanes (III Año) and Pazo Señorans keep wine on its fine lees in steel, not oak, for more texture and slower development.

In the glass: Creamier texture, bread and nut notes, better ageing

Barrel fermentation or ageing makes a richer, rounder style.

A minority of wines are made in oak: Martín Códax's Organistrum uses French oak, Fefiñanes' 1583 is oak-aged, and Zárate's El Palomar is fermented in large oak foudres.

A minority of wines are made in oak: Martín Códax's Organistrum uses French oak, Fefiñanes' 1583 is oak-aged, and Zárate's El Palomar is fermented in large oak foudres.

In the glass: More weight and creaminess, with spice and toast over the fruit

Native yeast and skin contact: the region's small low-intervention edge.

Albamar ferments every wine with native yeast, Forjas del Salnés makes Cos Pés on its skins, and Zárate works organically and biodynamically with wild yeast.

Albamar ferments every wine with native yeast, Forjas del Salnés makes Cos Pés on its skins, and Zárate works organically and biodynamically with wild yeast.

In the glass: Savoury, textured, more individual wines