It’s December. 2024 is drawing to a close, and it’s time for us all to reflect on the important things in life. We come together with our families, reflect on the state of the world, make resolutions for 2025, and most importantly, reminisce about how many bottle shots of Galician wine we posted to Instagram.
Here are 12 wines I loved in 2024 that sum up my year in Galician wine.
1. Briny, seafaring Albariño at its finest from “El Capitán” Xurxo Alba
Xurxo Alba quickly established himself as a rising star in Rías Baixas, working out of his family’s furancho-turned-winery Bodegas Almabar. Today, it’s safe to say that he stands among the region’s great growers and winemakers. He’s a master of his craft—his Albariños are effusive, electric wines, brimming with Atlantic energy and Salnés terruño. Sesenta e Nove Arrobas bursts out of the glass with fresh lemon and lime rind, wet stone, and sea salt. It also appeals to my obsession with Galician history—an arroba was an old Galician liquid volume measure used for wine, which equaled approximately 14.5 liters. The wine’s “sixty nine arrobas” refers to the thousand liters Xurxo first made of this wine. 100% Albariño from a selection of parcels in the Val do Salnés, mostly from the parish of Castrelo. He ages it in stainless steel on its fine lees with no bâtonnage, so it has a certain leesiness on the nose but a vertical, lengthy, mineral palate. ($54 – 2022 vintage)
2. Generous, ageable Albariño from Veigamoura
Quoth Tim Atkin: “Toni Alonso’s wines are made in comparatively small quantities, but they are well worth seeking out.” Veigamoura—which doesn’t have a US importer—is the work of Toni Alonso, a single grower working in Sande, near Arbo in the Condado do Tea subzone of Rías Baixas. He makes two wines, both of which are released with some bottle age. The Albariño is from a single parcel in Sande in the village of Arbo. It’s close to the Miño River, on top of a hill that forms one of the interfluves that slice up the Condado do Tea and make some interesting sandy terroir. It has the peachy, mandarin orange in syrup nose that I always find in Condado do Tea, with a burst of acidity that makes you always come back for more. €20
3. When they say old vines, they mean old vines.
You could be forgiven for thinking there’s a small forest planted in front of the Méndez family winery. Their prized Cepas Vellas (“old vines” in Gallego) vineyard is both the foundation for their top wine and the first thing that visitors see when they pull up to the winery. The gnarled trunks have been there since at least 1790, making them the oldest documented vines in Rías Baixas. Gerardo—and now his son Manu—have been making it since 1992, and only in the best vintages. It takes a special kind of person to understand vines like these, and whatever Gerardo has, he’s passed on to Manu, whose winemaking feels instinctive and practiced despite his relative youth. You can’t recreate complexity like this in the winery; it’s something that can only come from the old vines. Drinking Cepas Vellas reaffirms the belief that Albariño definitively belongs among the best white wines in the world. $70
4. And speaking of complexity…
I drank this bottle with my parents in my top-floor New York City apartment on a 90-degree day. It was perfect and refreshing, but it wasn’t the wine to simply be a thirst-quencher. This is a wine that I wanted to sit with over time to see how it evolved in the glass, because I got something new every time I came back to it. Eulogio ‘Locho’ Pomares is the heir to one of the most important names in Albariño: Zárate. Locho’s great-uncle Ernesto Zárate was a founder of the Festa de Albariño, and one of the first to pioneer Albariño in the 20th century. Locho stepped into the family business and has been working for years to make some of the highest-quality Albariño in Rías Baixas. El Palomar comes from a single east-facing parcel of pre-phylloxera vines in Padrenda, in Meaño. He ages the wine for 9+ months in a single 2,200L French foudre on both the gross and fine lees, and allowed spontaneous malolactic in 2021. Peaches and cream and a spicy, woody finish—and gone too soon. $55
5. Yes I’m going to brag about the unicorn wine
Did I drink a whole bottle? No, I drank (no spitting!) a glass in the tasting room with Rafa at the winery. Is it worth $350 a bottle? Ehhhhh… I plead the fifth. I think the price thing is another conversation—Rafa Palacios can price the wines whatever he wants, at the end of the day, because that 100-point score from Luís Gutiérrez back in 2020 and his last name are going to sell the wines for him. I think what most impressed me about Sorte O Soro is the way it fits into Rafa’s vision for Valdeorras, and the way it faithfully reflects a sense of place. When he drove me around in July, it was clear that he has a laser-focused, terroir-driven understanding of Valdeorras that few others possess. To be fair, he has the advantage of coming from one of modern Spain’s great wine dynasties and some very talented siblings he can bounce ideas off. But few others have taken the time to delve into Valdeorras’ terroir the way he has, and the search for quality has paid off with Sorte O Soro. It comes from a single plot in Santa Cruz do Bolo in the Bibei Valley, fairly high up for Valdeorras at 710 meters above sea level, with a southwest exposition and a slight breeze all day long. Rafa says this gives it a “dual character” of ripeness and freshness. And yes, it was very good. $350
6. Cool history? Check. Unsung corner of Rías Baixas? Check. Good wine? Check.
There’s a little island of DO Rías Baixas that sticks out above the rest of the O Rosal subzone. It’s not quite connected to the rest of O Rosal, and it covers part of the town of Gondomar, hometown of Don Diego Sarmiento de Acuña, Count of Gondomar and one of the most renowned Spanish diplomats of the 17th century. Among the many forms of diplomacy he practiced was the liquid kind. Specifically, he shipped copious amounts of wine from his properties to London, where it caught on with King James I and his chancellor Sir Francis Bacon—heard of him? Fast forward a few centuries and businessman Alberto Cabaco decides to start a winery in Gondomar. He bought land, planted vines, and brought Jorge Marcote on as winemaker. Bodegas Pentecostés farms three estates located in Gondomar, surrounding two traditional Galician pazos (manor houses): Pazo Barreiro, a 17th-century manor house, and Pazo de Moldes, also known as Pousa de San Blas, which dates back to the 13th and 14th centuries. I drank this at Ernesto’s on Manhattan’s Lower East Side—it’s got great texture from the slight lees aging and fraction of barrel fermentation Jorge does, with a classic Albariño acidic bite. $27
7. From Foodie to Foudre
Roberto Rodríguez came into winemaking through food: after opening two gourmet food shops in Ourense, he first made wine in Ribeiro. In 2017, he inherited a family vineyard in Rairos, a village on the south side of the Sil River near the Quiroga-Bibei subzone of Ribeira Sacra (though none of his wines have a DO), and set up shop. Next to the winery is 40 year-old vineyard called Barcelas, planted at 250 meters above sea level on clay soil with pebbles, slate and gravel from the Sil River. It’s the source for Martiñolo Branco, a blend of Godello and Caíño Branco made in foudre. It’s pretty intense on the nose, with the vanilla spice you’d expect from foudre and a lot of stone fruit like claudias, the tiny yellow plums that every Galician abuela grows in her backyard. Super drinkable and gastronomic—this is definitely a project to watch, although production is miniscule with only about 1,000 bottles of this produced each year. $30
8. Ribeira Sacra Field Blend, or Pinot in a Pinch
I blinded two people who are very good tasters on this and their guess was domestic Pinot—not sure if that’s a good or bad thing for the Fedellos fellas, but the wine does show super juicy red fruit and lift reminiscent of the best our West Coast has to offer. Curro Bareño and Jesús Olivares are originally from Madrid, but after a stint in Gredos they came to work in Galicia, where they founded Fedellos (mischievous, in Galician) in the early 2010s. Lomba dos Ares is a village wine from vineyards in Manzaneda, on the west bank of the Bibei River, which separates DO Ribeira Sacra from DO Valdeorras. The vines are fairly old and planted to a hodgepodge of Mencía, Merenzao, Caiño Tinto, Negreda (aka Juan García), Garnacha Tintorera, Gran Negro, and others. All are cofermented and aged in concrete, foudre, and a few neutral 300-500L French oak barrels. Juicy red fruits and wild herbs on the nose, with none of the reductivity you can get from the region right out of the bottle. Fresh and vibrant on the palate. $32
9. Doing my part to drink more Ribeira Sacra
Fernando González has been making wine since 1979, when he named his winery after his wife’s family home: Casa Algueira, which in the Galician language means “the place where friends gather to enjoy.” Adega Algueira has led a quality-driven revolution in the Ribeira Sacra, and Fernando is like the Lorax: he speaks for the region. He considers himself a mouthpiece for the Ribeira Sacra, spreading the message of its history, tradition, and potential. Second-generation Fabio joined his father at the helm of the winery in the 2010s, and is gradually taking the reigns. This wine made from Brancellao invites gathering with friends to enjoy, and it’s also a window into the potential of lesser-known native varieties in Ribeira Sacra. Foot-trodden and aged in old oak barrels, it’s got dark red fruit and dried herbs on the nose, like stepping inside an apothecary where someone’s making a cherry pie. $40
10. Magical, mystical old vines on the other side of Ribeira Sacra
Abadía da Cova is a historic, pioneering winery on the Miño River side of Ribeira Sacra that dates back to 1958, when it was founded by José Moure and Ana Vázquez, who drew on a family tradition of winemaking and distilling that began in the 1920s. The winery helped to found the Ribeira Sacra Denominación de Origen in 1996, and now fourth generation Paloma, Jose, and Adrián are focusing on telling the full story of their corner of the region. I visited them this summer and was blown away by their amazing energy and passion for the region—a far cry from the pessimism you tend to get from Gallegos. This wine comes from a 0.4 hectare vineyard planted in 1930 that we visited across the river from the winery. It’s an amazing site, with vertiginous terraces weaving around giant granite boulders sticking out of the hillside. Grapes are fermented in a 2,000-liter French oak foudre, with malo and six months of aging in 225-liter French oak barrels. It’s super elegant and lithe, with the ethereal perfume-y quality I love about the best Ribeira Sacra wines. Not widely available outside Spain, so I guess you’ll just have to go and visit them. €30
11. And we should all be drinking more Ribeiro reds
This one keeps popping up for me at different restaurants in NYC, and I jumped at the chance to drink it in Galicia too. We should all be drinking more red wine from Galicia, but it’s definitely easier to find reds from Ribeira Sacra and maybe Monterrei than from the other 3 DOs. But don’t sleep on reds from Ribeiro, like this wine from José Pereiro López Checuty, affectionately known as Pepiño. He was a pharmacist before dedicating himself entirely to his true passion of winemaking, but in 2011, he planted 3 ha of Brancellao and Caiño Longo on the granite amphitheater-like slopes of family land in Carballeda de Avia. Xanledo is 60% Caiño Longo and 40% Brancellao planted on decomposed granite. He ferments whole clusters with native yeasts and raises the wine 11 months in French oak barrels of various sizes. I’m still cautious with a lot of reds from cooler parts of Galicia, because VA can get out of control pretty fast, but here the oak lends a finesse and balance to the wine. Drink it if you find it! $32
12. Why you should go to Galicia
One of the things I love about going to Galicia and talking to people who live and breathe Galician wine is the joy of discovery. This wine was served to me by my friend Marcos Eire, who runs a kick-ass wine program at an amazing boutique hotel and restaurant in Ribeira Sacra called Tres Portas. I asked him to pick something off the list, and he brought this out: Brancellao with barrel and bottle age. This wine was a fantastic surprise—a complex nose with fruit that was very much alive, with the potential to go on for another couple of years. For 30 years, José María Prieto, a doctor by profession, began reclaiming a vineyard in the heart of prime Ribeira Sacra real estate from its state of semi-abandonment. The vineyard’s 11 hectares had to be bought plot by plot from over 100 different owners. This 100% Brancellao is fermented and macerated in 500-liter barrels and aged for seven months in 300-liter Allier oak barrels. If someone wants to import this into the States, I’ll be your first customer.