Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Setting the tone for this collection of whites that have a strong personality and high quality, the 2019 Brezo Godello is a young and expressive that doesn't show the reductive personality of many of the early-bottled Godellos. This is supposed to be a wine of thirst, easy to drink, fruit-driven and with good acidity, but it goes well beyond that and shows character and typicity, with the textbook pippin apples, bay leaf and a bitter twist in the finish, showcasing the variety. Produced with grapes from a number of villages—Valtuille, Villafranca, Cacabelos, Carracedo, etc.—on clay-rich soils, it fermented with indigenous yeasts and was kept with the lees for six months.
Godello is native to northwest Spain and has experienced a major revival in the last 20 years. Godello wines are typically sleek and lightly creamy in texture. Barrel fermentation and lees stirring are typical in Valdeorras, Spain where the grape comes from. These winemaking techniques make the most of Godello's inherent structure and help bring out its lovely floral character. Somm Secret—DNA profiling says that Spain’s Godello is actually identical to the Portugese grape variety Gouveio, which grows throughout the Douro and Dão (where it used to mistakenly be called Verdelho).
One of the few northwestern Spanish regions with a focus on a red variety, Bierzo, part of Castilla y León, is home to the flowery and fruity Mencia grape. Mencia produces balanced and bright red wines full of strawberry, raspberry, pomegranate, baking spice, pepper and black licorice. The well-drained soils of Bierzo are slate and granite.