Riberia Sacra is my new obsession and the Shangri La for great yet-to-be-discovered winemakers.
It is an ancient winemaking location in northwestern Spain that just oozes place and terroir and produces spectacularly unique wines that evaporate all preconceptions of Spanish varietals.
Ramón Losada, like Louis Rodriguez, is an example of a new generation of Galician winemakers who are putting Riberia Sacra on the world’s stage through simple and natural methods and passionate attention to the craft of making great wine that allows the place to shine through the grape.
Mr. Losada’s family farmed the terraces of this precipitous geography for generations, made wine for their own use and shipped the excess to sell by barrel on the river. Raised in Venezuela, he returned with this grandfather in the 1950s and took over the vineyard in the 1990s, naming his vineyard D. Ventura after his mentor and grandfather. Winemaking is his hobby. He works as a veterinarian during the week; winemaker on the weekends.
Pena do Lobo is 100% Mencia and will shatter any lingering mental notes on what Mencia tastes like. Made from grapes grown on steep terraces close to the shores of the River Sil, the wine is hand harvested and organically grown. This area has never known industrialized farming and is too steep for machinery. The grapes are harvested by a dumb waiter and pulley system. In fact, the land here is tended in ways that are not dissimilar to how the Roman’s did, some two centuries earlier with vineyards carved out of cliffs and vines grown in granite and slate soil.
Mencia is an intense grape but this bottling is the intersection of rich and lush and deep fruit with the balance of a great Burgundian Pinot Noir. There is a natural structure and character to this wonderful bottle, yet it is ripe and full bodied. This is a satisfying wine with approachable complexity that lingers.
At $23 a bottle, the value to the pocket and the thrill to the palate and the intellectual stimulation of learning how to taste this far off place are irresistible.
Find this wine and follow this winemaker and this region. This is one of the oldest wine regions that is the newest new thing that will last for this wine blogger for a long time.
