Winemaker Notes
'Equilibrio' refers to the perfect balance sought between ripeness, acidity, and neutral oak texture.
Blend: 100% Albariño
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The wine that started it all goes even one step further in nuance, complexity and even balance. I'm taking about the superb 2023 O Equilibrio, cropped from a very balanced year with good ripeness and very good freshness. It's precise, multifaceted, subtle and elegant, with incredible detail, focused and precise like a laser cut. The word is balance, which is what the wine's name means. They aim for more complexity and structure than A Pedreira, produced mostly with grapes from the Xesteira vineyard on schist soils and two small plots on sandy soils in Arra. It fermented and matured in used 400- to 700-liter French oak barrels for 11 months. It has the following parameters: 13% alcohol, 3.26 pH and 7.9 grams of acidity. At this price, the quality is unbelievable. It should age beautifully.
Rating: 96+ -
James Suckling
This is herbal, with austere aromas of fennel, wet slate and ocean shore. The palate is saline, medium- to full-bodied and tense, with a subtle phenolic grip and lingering salinity. Aged in neutral barrels of different sizes.
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Vinous
The 2023 Albariño O Equilibrio from Sanxenxo, Rías Baixas, spent 11 months in barrel. Yellow in hue, it delivers a reductive profile with floral and faint fruit notes. Less expressive on the nose, this is creamy, compact and chalky on the palate, with a fine, nervy edge. It is slender, taut and refreshing.
Bright and aromatic with distinctive floral and fruity characteristics, Albariño has enjoyed a surge in popularity and an increase in plantings over the last couple of decades. Thick skins allow it to withstand the humid conditions of its homeland, Rías Baixas, Spain, free of malady, and produce a weighty but fresh white. Somm Secret—Albariño claims dual citizenship in Spain and Portugal. Under the name Alvarinho, it thrives in Portugal’s northwestern Vinho Verde region, which predictably, borders part of Spain’s Rías Baixas.
Named after the rías, or estuarine inlets, that flow as far as 20 miles inland, Rías Baixas is an Atlantic coastal region with a cool and wet maritime climate. The entire region claims soil based on granite bedrock, but the inlets create five subregions of slightly different growing environments for its prized white grape, Albariño.
Val do Salnés on the west coast is said to be the birthplace of Albariño; it is the coolest and wettest of all of the regions. Having been named as the original subregion, today it has the most area under vine and largest number of wineries.
Ribeira do Ulla in the north and inland along the Ulla River is the newest to be included. It is actually the birthplace of the Padrón pepper!
Soutomaior is the smallest region and is tucked up in the hills at the end of the inlet called Ria de Vigo. Its soils are light and sandy over granite.
O Rosal and Condado do Tea are the farthest south in Rías Baixas and their vineyards actually cover the northern slopes of the Miño River, facing the Vinho Verde region in Portugal on its southern bank.
Albariño gives this region its fame and covers 90% of the area under vine. Caiño blanco, Treixadura and Loureira as well as occasionally Torrontés and Godello are permitted in small amounts in blends with Albariño. Red grapes are not very popular but Mencía, Espadeiro and Caiño Tinto are permitted and grown.