Lagar de Pintos Rias Baixas Albarino 2023

Lagar de Pintos Rias Baixas Albarino

Region: Rías Baixas, Galicia, Spain

Vintage: 2023

Bottle size: 75cl

Grape: Albarino

ABV: 12.5%

Notes: Vegetarian, vegan, practising organic

The nose is scented with zesty citrus aromatics and is matched by a concentrated and grapefruit-accented palate. There is a saline trace on the finish which makes this a very flavourful and complex Albariño.

This wine is a finely balanced blend of the estate's seven plots – Palomar, Gatiñeira, Requeixo, Cachadiña, La Escusa, Albar and Puente Arnela – each of which contains varying degrees of granite and sandy soils. Vines planted on soils with a higher proportion of granite tend to ripen earlier than those with more sand, allowing for up to 20 days difference in harvest dates between plots. The vines are on average 40 years old.

Lagar de Pintos is a small family estate located in the Salnés Valley, the most northerly subzone of the Rías Baixas appellation. It is run by two sisters, Marta and Carmen Castro-Pintos. Their traditional Galician ‘pazo’, or manor house, is a typical feature of the lush green countryside found here, just a few miles from the unspoilt beaches of the Atlantic coast. Originally used as a farmstead where sheep and cows were kept, it has been in the Pintos family for four generations and it wasn’t until the 1950s that their grandfather planted vines. Their father, Pepe Pintos, modernised the estate in the 1980s when the region started to embrace wine production following the revival of the Albariño grape variety.