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Monday, March 8, 2021

Do Ferreiro Albarino




2017 Do Ferreiro Albarino Adina...$45.99
The 2017 Adina comes from a strip of red slate that goes from Porto to the south of England. The nose is more powerful, more exuberant, more immediate, and the palate is very intense. This is very different from the Lourido. It has lots of citrus sensations and more notes of grapefruit; Manuel Méndez told me he thinks this citrus acidity is present because there is malic acid. It was kept with the lees for nine months. This is superb, really tasty and has all it should take for a long and positive evolution in the bottle. 
Rated 94/100 The Wine Advocate

2017 Do Ferreiro Albarino Dous Ferrados...$45.99
Vine Age: 30 years
The 2017 Dous Ferrados is basically the evolution of the Albariño Barrica. They started in 2011, and Gerardo used vines from sandy soils. His son Manuel changed the wine in 2015—he used grapes from red slate soils and felt the wine went better with the barrique. In 2016 he thought the oak was very subtle and wanted to change the name, removing the reference to the barriques. They only produce two 500-liter barrels, and one "ferrado" is the amount land that they need to fill one barrique, hence the name of the wine. If you are put off by the idea of oak and Albariño, taste this. The salinity comes through here, perhaps because of the slow oxygenation through the pores of the oak, and they search for complexity, especially the change in the mouthfeel. The wine was in contact with the lees for eight months. This has volume and clout, with perhaps a rounder palate than the Adina. With time in the glass, notes of licorice and aniseed emerge. The barrels are ten years old, so they do not lend aromas or flavors. In the future, they might experiment with foudres and other sizes. 
Rated 92/100 The Wine Advocate

2018 Do Ferreiro Albarino Dous Ferrados...$45.99
Vine Age: 30 years
The only Albariño where they use any wood is the 2018 Dous Ferrados, which ferments and matures in barrel for nine months with lees. The idea is to go back to the wines from yesteryear, fermenting in large-volume oak casks (500 liters here) with the intention that the wood is in the background and does not interfere with the aromatics of the variety but aid the micro-oxygenation of the wine. The grapes are sourced from the same soils as the Adina, on red slate soils, a different source than the old "barrica" bottling that was from Meaño. The wine needed a little bit of time to open up in the glass; funnily enough, it felt more reductive/blurry than any of its siblings. The palate is saline and mineral, with marked granite sensations in the grainy texture, and finishes long and dry. 1,300 bottles were filled in September 2019.
Rated 93/100 The Wine Advocate

And the big gun!
2019 not rated yet but it always scores big!

2019 Do Ferreiro Albarino Cepas Vellas...$54.99
The famed Cepas Vellas from Do Ferreiro, one of Spain’s iconic white wines capable of long aging and improvement in bottle, is sourced from a 1.5ha albariño vineyard in front of the winery in the Salnés Valley which is over 245 years old. Considered by many to be the apex expression of Rías Baixas albariño, Cepas Vellas now stands with the great white wines of the world. Cepas Vellas is capable of improving for 10 to 20 years in the cellar.
Grapes: Albariño
Vine Age: 200+ years

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