Winemaker Notes
Pazo de Barrantes Albarino shows an expressive nose with intense aromas of white stone fruit, citrus fruit, bay and touches of balsamic. It is a fresh and full-bodied wine with a lengthy finish bursting with juicy white fruit and salinity.
Professional Ratings
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Wine & Spirits
Vicente Cebrián Sagarriga, proprietor of Marqués de Murrieta in Logroño, traces his family’s history back to this domaine in Salnés. His team farms 30 acres of albariño in eight parcels, and their vineyard work came together in this latest release, the best vintage we’ve tasted from the estate. Fermented and aged in stainless steel, with 15 percent in acacia barrels, it’s immediately ripe and luscious; the flavors seem to emanate from the structure imparted by that small contribution of wood and the pale, salt-cod savor of the lees. The scent of apricot blossoms and white peach builds layers of flavor that just keep going. Delicious with roast scallops or most anything else from the sea.
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2020 Albariño Gran Vino is from a rich vintage with a noticeable depth of concentration. Balsamic, mint, and olive brine provides a salty quality through a long finish of medium-bodied expansiveness and well-integrated acidity.
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Vinous
The 2020 Gran Vino Pazo Barrantes is 100% Albariño from Ribadumia, Valle del Salnés, Rías Baixas. More mature in aroma than other vintages, the 2020 showcases soft oak, acacia and gentle peach notes. Broad, creamy and fresh, it delivers richness balanced by delicate vibrancy. This is the product of a warmer vintage that highlights contrasts.
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Wine Spectator
This finely meshed white presents poached apricot and melon fruit flavors that are lightly honeyed, juicy and accented by a subtle streak of salinity and hints of chopped almond, lime blossom and warm spice. Silky, with a lingering finish. Drink now through 2025. 6,544 cases made, 900 cases imported.
Pazo de Barrantes is part of the Marqués de Murrieta family, one of the founding fathers of modern Spanish winemaking. The winery has been associated to the Counts of Creixell since the beginning of the 20th century, and the property in the hands of the family since 1511. Over the years, the Count of Creixell´s family has given its own personality to every wine produced at the winery. In the 1990s, the Galician property turned into an estate designed specifically for the albariño growing, the great and noble local grape variety. This enabled the family to join all the efforts to offer careful and precise winemaking in the heart of the Salnés Valley.
The Pazo de Barrantes estate is located in the Salnés Valley of Rías Baixas and is the largest single estate in the valley. The property is close to the Galician coast in the western part of Spain, just north of Portugal. The winery is settled near the southern tip of the Rioja Alta in the middle of the beautiful Ygay Estate, a unique 300 hectare vineyard that guarantees complete control over the grape source of the wines and is the key to the quality and style of Marqués de Murrieta wines
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.