Manuel Moldes - 2022 Albariño “A Capela de Aios”

Price: $45.00
Size: 750ml
Availability: 

Out of stock

Type of Wine: White
Grape(s): 100% Albariño
Style: High acid, Mineral, Rich, Medium Body

GROWER OVERVIEW

One of Rías Baixas’ preeminent producers, Manuel Moldes crafts finely tuned, deeply technical wines. His Albariños highlight local schist and granite sites close to the Atlantic in the Rías Baixas subzone, Val do Salnés, to illuminate the differences between these rock types in the final products. The Albariños ferment and age in a combination of steel and old French oak barrels. The red winemaking follows the simplicity in the cellar of Albariños, though they involve the art of blending grape varieties from numerous terroirs. Reds often have some stem inclusion and are fermented and aged in a combination of steel and older oak barrels.

VINEYARD DETAILS

Albariño “A Capela de Aios” comes from a south/southwest facing terraced vineyard at 80-90m planted in the 1940s and 1980s on fine-grained schist topsoil and bedrock.

CELLAR NOTES

Natural fermentation and aging in old 500-700L French oak for 9-11 months. ML is not desired and rarely happens. First sulfites added at press. Fined and filtered.

About The Wine

A Capela de Aios is named after the tiny capela (church) in the small hamlet of Aios, located outside the Ría de Pontevedra. The vineyards sit on a mound of schist, a unique rock formation in a largely granite land, which Manuel says makes up 99.9% of all the vineyard area within the Val do Salnés. He’s drawn to the expression of wines from this hill, not only because they are rare, but because they bring a very different shape and dimension to Albariño than those grown on granite soils. This wine attacks and finishes like classic schist wines: a strongly mineral and metallic pressure directly on the back and side palate, almost skipping the front entirely by comparison. (Granite wines tend to be the opposite with more of a frontal attack and finish on the palate.) There it rests on the palate with dense salty characteristics and an electric feeling while remaining tight, dry and focused. Not surprisingly it has a strong relation in taste and feel to a Chenin Blanc grown on the schist soils of the Anjou—particularly a dry Chenin from the Côteaux du Layon. It’s fermentated with natural yeasts and aged in 500-700-liter neutral French oak barrels for nine to eleven months, depending on the vintage.