Luis A. Rodriguez Vazquez A Torna Dos Pasas 2011
-
Spirits
Wine &
Product Details
Your Rating
Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
-
Wine & Spirits
The first time I met Luis Rodríguez was around 2005, when we tasted a range of his wines along with empanadas at his small winery in the medieval village of Arnoia, in Ribeiro. Rodríguez is a patient, meticulous man focused on his vineyards. He works with native varieties, tending the vines to produce wines that, at their best, are comparable to the delicacy and strength of great pinot noir from Burgundy. A Torna Dos Pasas 2011 is one of them. Made from a selection of parcels, this includes caiño longo, caiño redondo, brancellao and ferrol; it spends a year in barrel and then another year in bottle before release. This vintage is bright, perhaps the best to date, full of intoxicating flavors of purple fruit, with a strong, earthy, mineral presence and intriguing sanguine notes. The structure relies on fierce tannins that have the strength to carry all that fruit without effort. While this is a wine of great complexity, it is also refreshing and easy to drink. The first time I tried A Torna Dos Pasas, Rodríguez cut a generous slice of empanada to accompany it, an empanada filled with fresh sardines. It’s a great match.
Other Vintages
2016-
Parker
Robert
-
Parker
Robert
-
Parker
Robert
The Ribeiro wine region was once world-renowned. During the 16th and 17th centuries the wines were heavily traded on the Atlantic, most notably England was a big customer. The traditional wine of the area was called Vino Tostado, made from grapes hung to dry in the sun, not so dissimilar to Italy’s Amarone. Successive disasters profoundly affected the region’s wines, including war with England, oidium, mildew, phyloxera, and then civil war. Ribeiro descended into an area responsible for primarily bulk wine production. As of late, with the help of colleteiros like Luis, there has been a movement towards producing wines that are more reflective of the unique Ribeiro terruño.
As a passionate son of Ribeiro, Luis Rodriguez is one of the most knowledgeable winegrowers that we have come in touch with in Galicia. He studied enology and philosophy in Madrid, took the time to visit many of Europe’s great wine regions, and even served as the president of the Ribeiro D.O. for many years. Over time, Luis has accumulated just over 5 hectares scattered over nearly 100 micro-plots primarily located in the town of Arnoia, a village with some of the steepest south-facing vineyards in Ribeiro. Here the soils are decomposed granite with sandy topsoil. Luis’s vines range from 10 to 50 years old, with many of them being planted by Luis himself. Having grown up in the village of Arnoia and by focusing his work there, Luis knows where the good vineyards are located. He has been steadily converting these plots from the bulk wine grapes Palomino and Garnacha Tintorera (Alicante Bouchet) to the native Treixadura, Lado, and Ferrol, to just name a few. His philosophy in the vineyard is to maintain balance. His approach to farming can be described as lutte raisonée, with no herbicides used ever, and treatments applied only if absolutely necessary, and never for a month before the harvest to help preserve the native yeasts existent on the grapes that help start fermentation.
The tiny adega that Luis works in was built by his grandfather and is called Viña de Martín, named after the first vineyard that he took over from his uncle Martín. Luís works with a mixture of temperature-controlled equipment and a variety of sizes of oak barrels, with a small amount of new barrels reserved for the top Escolma wines that are only made in certain vintages. All fermentations are carried out with native yeasts. He uses judicious amounts of sulfur during the winemaking process to act purely as an antiseptic and to avoid oxidation. The white wines are aged on the lees. For the reds, Luis has single-handedly revived vinho tinto production in the Ribeiro. His work with the Caiño Longo, Caiño Redondo, Ferrol, and Brancellao grapes is unprecedented in contemporary Ribeiro and admired by many vignerons across the Iberian Peninsula.
With all of Luis’s work, the most striking thing about him is how humble he is, his face blushing at the mere mention of praise. If you are in Galicia, it is worth paying him a visit. He makes fantastic homemade embutidos and chorizos, and distills his own spirits as a hobby. He also keeps good stock of back vintages of his wines, which just show how remarkable these wines are as they age. It is time for the world to notice that fine Ribeiro wine prevails.
Spanish red wine is known for being bold, heady, rustic and age-worthy, Spain is truly a one-of-a-kind wine-producing nation. A great majority of the country is hot, arid and drought-ridden, and since irrigation has only been recently introduced and (controversially) accepted, viticulture has sustained—and flourished—only through a great understanding of Spain’s particular conditions. Large spacing between vines allows each enough resources to survive and as a result, the country has the most acreage under vine compared to any other country, but is usually third in production.
Of the Spanish red wines, the most planted and respected grape variety is Tempranillo, the star of Spain’s Rioja and Ribera del Duero regions. Priorat specializes in bold red blends, Jumilla has gained global recognition for its single varietal Monastrell and Utiel-Requena has garnered recent attention for its reds made of Bobal.