Winemaker Notes
Complex aromas of salinity exotic fruits with wet earth/herbal tones. The palate is textured with excellent acidity.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The Méndez family consider 2016 a vintage with some similarities with 2011. I tasted their regular 2016 Albariño, which is produced from a mix of grapes from the 164 plots of vines they work, adding diversity of soils, mostly granite and sand but also red slate, and expositions in the villages of Meaño, Adina, Sisán, Castelo and Leiro. The grapes were picked in five days, starting on September 17th. All wines fermented with a "pied de cuve" from the Cepas Vellas, which fermented the juice from the destemmed grapes. The wine is kept with fine lees for a period of time that can range between four and up to 11 months. It has a fresh and balanced nose, with notes of good freshness—quite striking for a warmish year—with citrus notes intermixed with hints of white flowers and fruit. It's a more powerful year, with 13.5% alcohol, but has great acidity and freshness. The palate is focused and delineated, with great purity and very tasty flavors. It has great mid-palate and concentration. A surprise. It's one of the finest young Do Ferreiros I remember. This should evolve nicely in bottle.
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Wine & Spirits
A dynamic white with leesy depths, this ranges from high notes of green apple, Asian pear and meadow flowers to darker notes of wheat germ. The fruit is ornate in its ripeness, hinting at kumquats and pineapple. It’s heady and creamy, a complement to gambas al ajillo.
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.