2019 Guímaro "Camiño Real" Ribeira Sacra Tinto, Galicia, Spain

ABOUT THIS WINE

From 6 hectare in Amandi planted primarily to 40 to 60 years old vine Mencía, along with other native Galician varieties. All of the grapes were hand-harvested together and spontaneously fermented with 100% whole clusters in open-top oak vats with a 40 day maceration. Half of the wine was raised in foudre and the other half in used 225 & 500L French barrels for around one year. The finished wine was bottled without fining or filtration.

ABOUT THIS PRODUCER

Pedro Rodríguez descends from a long line of winegrowers working in the Amandi area, Ribeira Sacra’s most prime sub-zone of south facing vineyards planted on local Losa slate, just above the river Sil. They named their winery Guímaro (meaning “rebel” in Gallego) a term which has a special connection to history of this area.

Before 1991, Pedro’s family produced small quantities of wine for their own consumption and sold their wine in garrafones - 20-liter glass containers - to local cantinas. It was Luis Buitrón, an enologist from León that was instrumental in the creation of the Ribeira Sacra D.O. (and is now a close family friend), who helped the Rodríguez family to start estate-bottling their wines in the early 1990s. Guímaro was one of the first adegas to join the appellation when it was founded in 1996.

If the focus on traditional, old-fashioned grape varieties is one aspect of the past that Adegas Guimaro has revived, their approach in the cellar is another. Pedro’s winemaking is resolutely traditional: for the single vineyard wines, they employ wild yeast fermentation, foot treading in open-top vessels, stem inclusion, low sulfur additions, and fermentation and aging in used foudre. Finca Meixemán, Finca Capeliños, Finca Pombeiras, and A Ponte are some of the most distinctive and age-worthy being produced today on the “Sacred Banks”.