Camándula - Souson & Co. (Ribeiro, Peixes)

Sousón basis met Mencía, Negreda, Grao Negro en meer | DO Ribeiro | field blend | afkomstig van 6 percelen op de hoog gelegen hellingen | stokken ouder dan 60-100 jaar | donker fruit | heel puur en elegant | finesse | spanning | drop | kruiden | randje naturel 

Fedellos do Couto & Peixes

Sinds 2013 zijn Curro en Jesús samen met Luis Tobada gestart met hun Fedellos do Couto project. De wijngaarden waar de opbrengsten eerst van werden verkocht wordt hier nu wijn gemaakt. Op de zeven hectare grond die zij bewerken staan soms wel acht tot negen druivenrassen door elkaar! Het gebied Ribeira Sacra staat bekend om zijn prachtige natuur. Scherpe kliffen, riviertjes en beekjes en flinke rotspartijen. Later komen daar wijngaarden in de DO Ribeiro bij op grote hoogte. Karakteristieke wijnen met karakter en puurheid!

Reviews

Because of issues with the brand name, the red called Lacazán in 2016 has been renamed to Camándula, but the spirit is the same. The 2017 Camándula is a Sousón-based blend from 20-year-old vines on metamorphic soils and clay and stones with around 20% other mixed varieties (Mencía, Negreda, Grao Negro, etc.) from field blends of 60- to 80-year-old vines on schist soils. The whole clusters had a natural fermentation at low temperature and a 60-day total maceration time. The wine matured in used 500-liter French oak barrels for 12 months. It has a lot more freshness, definition and finesse than the initial 2016, despite the 2017 vintage being warmer and drier. They picked the grapes earlier, and the resulting wine is a lot more austere. This has a lot of finesse for Sousón, which is not an easy grape; it's perfumed and less rustic than the 2016. This is the wine where I see a bigger improvement from the initial vintage. 5,000 bottles produced. It was bottled in April 2019. 91/100 Luis Gutiérrez

Peixes is a project from Curro Bareño and Jesús Olivares, two-thirds of Fedellos do Couto. It is located outside the better-known wine regions of Galicia, somewhere between Ribeira Sacra and Valdeorras, on the banks of the Bibei River in the haute Bibei Valley. 2017 is only their second vintage. They produced the same three wines as in 2016, but they had to change the name of one wine and decided to change the image of the labels too. They work six hectares of old vines in Viana do Bolo (Punxeiro, Santa Mariña de Froxais, Grixoa, Fornelos) where the soils are granitic rich in mica and orange and pink quartz at 650 to 825 meters above sea level. The vines are head pruned and contain a myriad of varieties: red Mencía, Bastardo, Garnacha Tintorera, Negreda, Grao Negro, Caíño and Aramón and white Godello, Dona Branca, Colgadeira, Treixadura, Palomino, Caíño Blanco and Moscatel de Grão Miúdo, even if they only produce reds so far. Further wines come with 2018, and the wines from that year were bottled just a few days before I tasted them. In 2018, they produced two more reds from Valdeorras (but still sold without appellation of origin). The first one was produced exclusively with ancestral varieties (Mouratón, Merenzao and Albarello) from younger plantings, and a second one comes from old vines from the village of Seadur (very close to A Rúa), where they have also restored an old cave. For now, I see an improvement in 2017 from the initial 2016; they have adjusted the date of harvest of each plot and have a better understanding of the vineyards. And 2018 is another step up, showing a learning curve and also a better vintage, even if it was somewhat challenging. 2018 is a super vintage for the project. A project on the way up. Current production is 15,000 bottles.