Rías Baixas & Vinho Verde

Many years ago, I was in a pub in Dublin making small talk to a friend of a friend. They mentioned they were going to Spain for the first time the following week to a place they had been told was the “Ireland of Spain”: wet, green, rural, poor, with its own language, and best known for smuggling. “Typical,” they said, “the first time I go to Spain I choose the one part that’s just like Ireland.”

Two years later I visited Galicia for the first time, and understood exactly what they’d been talking about. It was July and it rained so hard I nearly fell off a cliff. The land was verdant, and felt far removed from the rest of Spain.

There is one significant difference between Galicia and Ireland: wine. One of the highest quality white wine regions in Spain is Rías Baixas, on the Atlantic coast. The quiet revolution in Spanish white wine from the 1980s onwards was kickstarted by producers in Rías Baixas. After phylloxera, plantings in the region were dominated by Palomino because of its high yields rather than its suitability for quality wines in a wet region. In the late 1970s, as Spain transitioned to democracy, ambitious producers looked back to the past to see what had been planted before phylloxera: Albariño. With the introduction of modern winemaking and temperature control, fresh, floral, aromatic, high-acid wines from the variety were so successful that they became fashionable around the world.

Visiting Rías Baixas, Albariño is everywhere: on road signs, in wineries’ marketing, on labels, in bars and restaurants, on the tip of everybody’s tongue as they talk about the region. It’s the defining factor of a region that was traditionally poor and neglected but now has global acclaim.

I stayed in the lively, perfectly positioned city of Vigo from which most wineries are a thirty minutes’ drive. The city is on the Atlantic coast, large bodies of water jutting into the surrounding green, hilly landscape (these inlets give Rías Baixas its name). Red-topped houses are scattered in the hills looking out to the ocean. Vines are everywhere: despite the success of Rías Baixas, it’s an extremely fragmented region, each generation inheriting smaller and smaller plots of land. At Martín Códax, the leading co-operative, there are 300 members and another 200 growers who sell fruit to the winery.

Minho river

Also thirty minutes away is the Portuguese region of Vinho Verde where everything seems the same but changes completely. Portugal and Galicia are separated by a smallish river called Minho in Portuguese and Miño in Spanish. It takes about ten seconds to drive across but the change is immediate: a different time zone, different number plates on the cars, a different language. The distance is so small, my phone thought I was still in Spain the whole time I was there.

Thirty seconds after crossing the river I was at a small, 9ha winery called Quinta de Santiago which is rightly gaining a very good reputation. Twenty minutes further along the river is the renowned winery, Soalheiro. As I stood on the patio taking a photo, I thought I was looking at Portuguese vineyards. In fact, I was photographing Rías Baixas.

rainy view of Rías Baixas from Vinho Verde

Vinho Verde (don’t pronounce the second e) is a region where light-bodied, astringent reds used to dominate but since the 1980s it’s become known for its acidic, light-bodied whites which sometimes have a touch of spritz. The best wines come from between the towns of Monção and Melgaço, where Alvarinho is the common variety for wines with more body and structure than commercial Vinho Verde which is usually a blend.

Two regions next to one another, separated by a river, a language, and a culture, producing quite distinct wines from the same grape variety. How to account for the differences?

pergola training system at Pazo Señorans

In Rías Baixas, the training system is almost all pergola in which the vines reach above head height. This allows air circulation, exposes the vines to sunlight, and traditionally enables the planting of other crops underneath. This system is used a little bit in Vinho Verde, but nowadays the training systems are lower and more contemporary. Vinho Verde also receives more sunshine, and the wines have a little less natural acidity (the slightly warmer conditions explain why red wine used to be more common). Malolactic fermentation is occasionally encouraged in Rías Baixas, especially nearer the coast, but almost never in Vinho Verde. A short period of lees contact is also common in Rías Baixas. There is something of a paradox in the differences between the two regions: Vinho Verde tastes more acidic because the grapes are picked earlier and there is no malolactic fermentation, while cooler Rías Baixas has more weight to the wines due to winemaking.

Despite these differences, both regions are known for fresh, drink-now wines. Their acidity and attractive aromas make them ideal aperitif wines and with fish/seafood dishes. There are definite exceptions which highlight the quality of the two regions. At Pazo Señorans in Rías Baixas, I tasted three wines which demonstrated the versatility of the region and of Albariño. Their introductory Albariño spends four to five months on the lees, for an immediate, aromatic style. Three thousand bottles of the wine are put to one side and aged for three years to showcase the ageing potential of quality Albariño (released as “Colección”). I didn’t get to taste it this time, but “Selección de Añada” is an extraordinary wine that spends three years on the lees. There’s also the exceptional “Tras los Muros” (“beyond the walls”) made by the owners’ daughter-in-law Berta García which is fermented and aged in oak barrels.

line-up at Quinta de Santiago

Over in Portugal, Quinta de Santiago is a beautiful property, with winemaking history going back to the late 1800s. There is a strong female identity to the family’s history. Joana is the winemaker; I met her mother who is passionate about the diversity of crops on the property; apparently, her mother (“the grandmother”) was a strong character who defied perceptions of women in farming by leading viticulture and winemaking and driving the winery forwards in a time of more rustic practices. There is a range of wines, including two reds. There is a depth and density to the wines, with a lightness of touch, with more power and concentration than one would usually associate with Vinho Verde. Winemaking is also experimental, but not just for the sake of it: “Rascunho” (meaning “draft”) is aged for 24 months on the lees, for an elegant, texturally rich wine.

At Soalheiro, besides the phenomenal range of widely available wines, I got to try the first “Reserva” release from 2006 and another more experimental Alvarinho from the early days of 1998 (owner Luis Cerdeira’s first vintage was 1994 when he began to take over from his father who founded the winery in 1974). Golden in appearance, these two wines had astonishing vibrancy for their age, maintaining their fresh aromatics in tandem with a mature complexity. Think Vinho Verde is not a wine for ageing? Think again.

It was an extraordinary feeling crossing the border from Spain to Portugal, so simple and such a seemingly everyday experience. When I was recently in Oregon, it took longer and was more difficult to cross the Columbia River into Washington. Yet the cultural and linguistic differences between Portugal and Spain are immediately apparent, and that’s reflected in the wines. Taste Albariño from Rías Baixas and Alvarinho from Vinho Verde together and you’re in two distinct but connected worlds.