Pedro Mendez Vino Branco Do Val Albarino 2023 750ml

Winemaker Description 

This small-production Albarino comes from a mix of young and very old vines, made to be a pure, straight-to-the-point take on the bracing variety! The citrus blossom top notes, and core fruit character of apple & nectarine, come with a wash of powerful, saline-like acidity into the well-balanced finish, making for a mouthwateringly delicious experience.

Pedro’s Albariño collection is from the Salnés Valley hamlet, Meaño. If I were to draw a comparison to Pedro’s wines and our other growers in Rías Baixas, I’d say they’re more powerful than those of Manuel Moldes and, perhaps of equal power to Xesteiriña, but are more contained and classically styled than the latter. Pedro’s Albariños have broad shoulders, a compact core and megathrust. This may be partly due to the older average vine age of his many parcels, and, in some cases, deeper topsoil. Moldes’ cru Albariños are on schist, with his Afelio on the mostly granite. Xesteiriña harvests from a single plot of extremely hard metamorphic rock with almost no topsoil. The bedrock is somewhere between medium- to high-grade metamorphic rock: some looks like gneiss while others look like schist. Xesteiriña’s rock type is probably the rarest of all in Salnés with vineyards planted.