Pedralonga - 'Terra de Godos' - Albariño - Rías Baixas, ES - 2024

Satellite's Hot Take

This wine pops. So much in this bottle. Clean and deeply mineral

Notes from the Winery/Importer

From the producer's website: Visual phase pale yellow with greenish glints. Olfactory phase it is fresh, with hints of acidity and minerality; long finish, with milky notes. Tasting phase it is fresh, with good acidity and hints of green apple, unctuous and mineral. Particularities Harvested by hand in 16 kg crates. Pressed without the addition of sulphites. Temperature controlled fermentation in stainless steel tanks. Malolactic fermentation on the lees and subsequent resting on the lees for 6 months. Pedralonga Chords Made with grapes from our 15 year old vines, together with those of some selected vine growers, who work in unison following common guidelines established by our winery. The land, the viticulture and the grapes here sound in tune with the same baton. The result? A wine with its own identity, which treasures the chords of minerality and acidity of the Pedralonga wines.

Notes on the Producer

In 1982 Francisco Alfonso planted this seven and one-half hectare cru on a pure granitic hillside, ten miles from the Atlantic Ocean. For years they sold the wine locally and unlabeled. In 1997 they founded the winery as it is known today: Pedralonga, which means “big rock” in Gallego, a reference to the huge chunks of granite sticking out of the soil. It is now run by Francisco’s son Miguel. The vineyard has always been farmed organically and in 2007 they began integrating biodynamic practices. Miguel is fond of the Galician saying “A man who does not watch the moon does not reap the harvest.” They closely follow the phases when making farming decisions. They plow only when needed in order to combat erosion caused by the wet climate and promote the vineyard’s natural biodiversity. In the cellar Miguel does as little as possible. He doesn’t de-stem the Albariño grapes and he does partial whole-cluster fermentation for the red blend. He’s only using native yeast and doesn’t block malolactic fermentation with the belief that the natural process is part of the vintage variation. The wines are all aged on the lees for extended periods before being bottled. The resulting wines are complex and age-worthy, with remarkable texture and structure, balanced by bracing acidity and rich minerality.