Winemaker Notes
As Sortes (sorte being the Galician word for a lot drawn to determine vineyard inheritance) is made from Rafa’s oldest vines from the sortes of O Soro, Antigua, Os Caneiros, A Falcoeira, Alexos and A Coalleira. These sites have been fully converted to organic farming. As with the other wines at the estate the fruit is hand harvested and fermented with indigenous yeasts in the 500L French oak demi-muids. The wine is then aged in the same barrel for 7 months before bottling. Rafa replaces about 20% of these barrels each year.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
From higher elevation, granitic and sandy soils in the Bibei Valley, the 2016 As Sortes is 100% Godello that spent seven months in 20% new 500-liter French oak. Made by the youngest of the nine children in the Palacios family, it's a seriously impressive wine that has depth, balance and class, offering white flowers, citrus, salty minerality, white peach and hints of Meyer lemon. Rich, nicely concentrated, balanced and beautifully layered on the palate, with building richness, it's unquestionably the finest Godello I’ve ever tasted and well worth seeking out.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
As my tasting routine takes me to Valdeorras every 16 months or so, sometimes I have two vintages of the most relevant wines to taste side by side. Such was the case with the 2016 As Sortes, which I tasted next to the following 2017 vintage. 2016 was a slow-ripening year with a dry harvest that allowed for perfectly ripe grapes while maintaining very good levels of freshness. It fermented and matured in 500-liter oak barrels for some six to seven months. This has to be the finest vintage for As Sortes, and they seem to have been on a roll since 2012. The growing cycle was almost perfect and allowed for perfect ripeness of the grapes, which were harvested in the second half of October, very late (they finished on the 4th of November). The grapes achieved full flavors through slow ripening and kept the acidity. It has a sense of balance and symmetry with great precision and purity. There are subtle aromas of apricots and yellow plums and a twist of aromatic herbs intermixed with notes of wet granite. The palate has great intensity of flavors and is superbly balanced, long and tasty, with the signature saltiness on the finish.
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Wine Spectator
This white is rich and vibrant. Electric acidity fuels ripe flavors of pineapple, mango and tangerine, while mineral and ginger notes add interest. Expressive and energetic. Godello.
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).
Just to the south of Bierzo, the steeply terraced Valdeorras Spanish wine region is a respected source of both red and white wines. Garnacha Tintorera (Alicante Bouschet) and Mencía are the principal red varieties while Godello and Palomino compose the majority of this region's whites.