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OUR PHILOSOPHY
My first vineyard: 1979. The Carballo Cobo vineyard.
The abandonment, forgotten vineyards on stone structures that
the man in the past with his hands ordered up to get
make terraces that resist the passage of time, on the banks of the Sil river,
forming a unique and magical landscape that catches me,
just like our ancestors.
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Impressed by the vines, braving the slope, keeping the
balance, working with the wind, the rain, the sun, the moon, the stars,
on a cushion of slate, looking strains can produce a
miserable bunches of grapes, by transforming them into wine, our
first Algueira, a considerable emotion that motivates me to continue climbing
in the mountains, planting and recovering the old vineyard covered by
the forest, becoming passionate about the landscape.
In 2000, as a result of this, our first ageing wine was born. With is
spectacular plot and of little production, it would be ruinous to make a young wine,
which at that time was what was produced mainly in the region,
with the widespread belief that this area could not make ageing, long-lived and aged wines. This is how PIZARRA and CARRAVEL were born.
WHY NOT MAKE A TARGET?
Our area, Doade, in the past was highly valued for its robust and thick reds and was also valued for its white wines. In the Carballo Cobo vineyard, we also planted Godello, a variety in mineral soil, sunny, and with a shortage of water, produced structured and complex musts ideal for making a gastronomic white wine. The result is CLIMBING, the first Godello on lees made in the Escalada vineyard.
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Encouraged by the result, we decided to bet heavily on whites. The idea was to make a light and fruity young wine. When I choose to cross the river, fleeing from the south orientation, and buying land in Abeleda (Ourense), at that time, hardly any white varieties were planted in the RS and this area, with a cool and mild climate oriented towards the southwest, seemed ideal. We acquired the Cortezada parcel, bordering the Edo River, but it was abandoned and covered in forest. Once the terraces were cleaned and recovered, we discovered an authentic architectural gem. This Plot has 20,000 m2, and the ground is built on the stone rubble of the Castro Caldelas highway, slate and gneiss with hardly any soil.
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In this plot, we planted three varieties that intuit that could make a complex wine: Godello (structure), Treixadura (freshness) and Albariño (acidity). This is how our CORTEZADA wine was born after several years of work: Mineral, structured, complex. Estate wine, intense, elegant.
WHY?
WHY ONLY MENCÍA?
In an old vineyard, we discovered different grapes that, once we could identify them, they told us that it was Godello Tinto or Carnaz. It was enough to make 100 bottles, a wine with minimal colour, silky, elegant, very different. We loved it. We decided to contribute and plant more. It was not the wine that we would typically elaborate in this region, rather the opposite (it has no colour) and that was a problem, not a virtue. Break the established: tannic wines with a low layer. This is how our MERENZAO (RISCO) was born.
At the same time and in the same vineyard, we found a late-ripening grape. A very loose and small grain of little colour and clusters of low volume that also had marginalized it, in exchange for the Alicante Bouchet. We made a small plantation, and after several tests, the result arrived in 2009, and we were also captivated. It was our first ALVARELLO / BRANCELLAO (SERRADELO). We made 500 bottles in that year. From then on, we decided to plant it each year at different altitudes and orientations.
Why not bet on grape varieties with anthocyanins and tannins with an Atlantic profile. In La Abeleda we acquired a vineyard in the mountain that we thought was suitable for its orientation and altitude to plant the Sousón and Caíño varieties in 2ha of abandoned land on a steep slope; quartz, gneiss and slate soil and very ventilated. The result was our first FINCAS, that when we got enough production, we separated the two varieties to create CASTAGAIA (SOUSÓN) and AMARAL (CAÍÑO).
Why not make another white with the grapes from the new plantation (the year 2009) of Godello and Treixadura. ANADELIA was born, a tribute to Ana, my wife, well deserved for her help from the first moment to this project, always supporting all my initiatives, often misunderstood.
Why not a Garnacha Tintorera? From the beginning, we were acquiring ancient vineyards, very old, which had an exciting diversity of varieties, such as Mencía, Alicante Bouchet, Garnacha and Jerez. In the year 2010, we selected Garnacha and vinified it separately, in wooden fudres, making a barrel-ageing that surprised us and encouraged us to plant more on slate soil. This is how our MADIALEVA was born, and with the new planting, our ROSALÍO rosé.
Fernando Algueira
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