Nanclares y Prieto: Crystalline Albariños from the 2019 Vintage

2/28/21 -

Alberto Nanclares and his wife moved to Castrelo, near Cambados, in Rias Baixas in 1992. The retired economist loves the sea and sailing, and wanted to spend more time on and near the ocean. There was a bit of vineyard land near their new home, and eventually Alberto started farming the grapevines and set up a little winery in the garage. Initially farming conventionally (like the vast majority of his neighbors in the wet climate of Rias Baixas), he began to explore organic farming. While he orignally worked with an oenologist to make the wines, in 2007 he took over the winemaking entirely, moving towards a low-intervention approach in the cellar. In 2015 Silvia Prieto came on board, assisting Alberto in the cellar and the vineyard.

Today, Alberto Nanclares and Silvia Prieto are pioneers of organic and biodynamic winegrowing in Rias Baixas and make some of the most serious and inspired Albariño wines in the world. It seems clear that this success is the result of a steady evolution in the cellar and in the vineyard towards careful organic agriculture with biodynamic practices and thoughtful low-intervention winemaking.

From a few vines by Alberto Nanclares's house by the sea, the pair now diligently farm two-and-a-half hectares of scattered plots of pergola trained Albariño around Cambados to produce a range of wines, including serious single vineyard wines from very old vineyards. Yields are kept low, seaweed from the nearby Atlantic is used as fertilizer, and there is no plowing. The same care and attention is taken in the cellar, where Alberto and Silvia avoid additives (other than small amounts of SO2), ferment with indigenous yeasts, and neither fine nor filter the wines.

2019 was a very difficult year that emphasizes the struggles of organic agriculture in a humid maritime climate. Spring was troublesome, with variable weather, and culminated in catastrophic losses due to mildew in May. The surviving fruit, was, however blessed with a mild summer and a pleasant autmn. As a result, quantites are very reduced compared to previous years (and there never was very much!), and only one single vineyard wine (A Graña) was made. But these wines are outstanding, pure, crystalline in structure, and suited to aging. I wish there was more to go around, but I'm delighted by their beauty.

Thank you to Liz Fayad and Jose Pastor Selections for the information about these wines.

-Ben Fletcher