Galicia’s Monovarietal Madness

It started when two billboards advertising “O rei do Godello. Monterrei” (The king of Godello. Monterrei) popped up on the highway exit to O Barco de Valdeorras and in front of the cooperative winery Virgen de las Viñas. They were impossible to miss, with a message that differed slightly from the billboard in front of D.O. Valdeorras’ headquarters which says “El godello es de Valdeorras” (Godello is from Valdeorras).

Valdeorras was quickly up in arms, as winemakers decried the “bad taste” of putting up a billboard advertising Godello from another wine region in what they believe to be Godello’s spiritual home. Although it’s never been fully confirmed that Godello comes from Valdeorras, they insist the grape is native to the region and was recovered in the 1970s by the REVIVAL program (Restructuring the Vineyards of Valdeorras) after it nearly went extinct in the 20th century. Godello-based wines are produced in multiple other DOs like Bierzo, Monterrei, Ribeiro, and Ribeira Sacra.

Regardless of its origins, Godello has been experiencing a boom over the past few years, and everyone—including Monterrei—wants to jump on the bandwagon. It makes sense. Being a white wine already puts Godello ahead in the global wine consumption arms race. It’s a versatile grape that makes fresh, enjoyable young wines just as well as it makes complex, age-worthy ones. It even has Parker points: Rafael Palacios’ single-parcel Godello ‘Sorte O Soro’ 2020 became the first Galician wine to get 100 points from The Wine Advocate in 2022.

It’s unclear whether we’ve reached peak Godello, but I can say that everyone wants a piece of the action. In Bierzo, growers planted 293 new hectares of the grape between 2018 and 2023, and Valdeorras has doubled the area planted to Godello in the last ten years. Winemakers in Ribeira Sacra, which is facing its own difficulties to market all its (mainly red) wines, are considering grubbing up Mencía vines and replanting with Godello. And a growers’ association in Rueda proposed adding the grape to the region’s list of approved varieties in April, which was met with swift condemnation by both Bierzo and Valdeorras.

Add to this the ad campaign by Monterrei, which aims to “strengthen the position of Godello from Monterrei as a wine aligned with new consumers’ preferences.”

Once D.O. Monterrei was aware of the controversy, it took down the billboards and apologized. But its TV spot is still running, in which a mustachioed monterreiés (say that 3 times fast) lists all the things he could tell us about Godello from Monterrei, but ultimately decides not to because, as he says, he’s not here “to tell us stories.” He doesn’t need to say anything about ‘Godello de Monterrei’ because “it’s a wine that speaks for itself, and one you only need to try to realize that it’s ‘O Rei do Godello’. The ad concludes with the slogan “Denominación de Orixe Monterrei. O rei do Godello. Sen historias.”

If your Gallego is a bit rusty, that last bit means “no stories.” Kind of a weird thing for Galicia’s smallest, second-youngest and mostly-unknown-outside-Galicia-except-for-that-one-producer wine region to promote the idea that it doesn’t have any stories to tell, but hey, did they mention they make Godello?

This latest controversy is another example of the short-term thinking so common among the Galicians, where the prospect of easy money kills any desire to put in the work to promote Galicia’s true diversity. Godello is in fashion? Well then of course Monterrei = Godello!

Both growers and those at the helm of Galicia’s wine regions are to blame for this phenomenon. Dreaming of success like Rías Baixas has had with Albariño, they cling to monovarietal wines like a lifeline at the expense of promoting the history and terroir that truly make Galicia great. I’ve written about Ribeiro’s obsession with Treixadura. Ribeira Sacra has made Mencía its calling card at the expense of other amazing native grapes like Brancellao and Merenzao. Even the “storied” history of Godello in Valdeorras is less than 200 years old at best. In 1834, Antonio Casares was the first to catalogue Galicia’s grape varieties. He wrote that the red grape Brancellao was “the most abundant in Galicia and the one that populates almost all the vineyards of Rivero, Amandi, Lemos, Quiroga, Valdeorras and the Monterrei valley.”

Here’s the question: why do Galicia’s wine regions all have to have “their” signature grape? Why does Galicia have to fall prey to monovarietal madness? I’d understand if Galicia was making Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. But are consumers really going to recognize varietally-labeled Godello, or differentiate between Godello from Valdeorras, Monterrei, or Bierzo?

The danger with the monovarietal approach was foreshadowed by the growers’ association in Rueda. At the end of the day, Godello is a variety recognized by the International Organization of Vine and Wine, which allows any winegrower to plant it. You can find Albariño in Castilla, Uruguay, and California, oftentimes for a better price than top-quality Rías Baixas. Who’s to say the same won’t happen with Godello? 

At the end of the day, the type of consumer driven by price is going to reach for the cheapest option—whether that’s Godello from Valdeorras, Monterrei, or Pays d’Oc. Galicia’s winegrowers and wine regions need to take a cue from powerhouse regions like Rioja—known for the regional name, not Tempranillo—or even step outside of Spain and look at Bordeaux, Burgundy, or even the Loire Valley. Sure, you can grow Sauvignon Blanc anywhere, but much of it is a far cry from Sancerre. Why can’t Valdeorras and Monterrei take the same approach?

It’s a question that might not get an answer. But if quality winemaking in Galicia is going to have a future, let’s hope the respective regions wake up and start promoting regional terroir over grapes.