Eixe Tinto - Merenzao, Albarello and Negreda (Peixes)

Merenzao (Trousseau), Albarello & Negreda | wijngaard op 500 meter hoogte in Valdeorras | jonge stokken, 20 jaar oud | leisteen en alluviale bodem | druiven samen vergist in 500l hout | gedeeltelijk met steeltjes | heel lichte kleur | verfijnd | heel lichte extractie | floraal 

'The idea of this wine is to recover, in essence, the traditional wines that were made in Valdeorras in pre-phylloxeric times when were mainly cultivated the red varieties Merenzao, Albarello and Negreda, writings from José Miramontes 1860' 

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!

Review

Named after a mountain range where the vineyards are located, the 2018 Eixe is a new red produced exclusively with Merenzao (Trousseau), Albarello (Brancellao) and Negreda (the local name of Mouratón) grapes. This comes from youngish vines (less than 20 years old) planted with separate varieties on slate and alluvial soils between the villages of Barco de Valdeorras and Vilamartin, mostly in Córgomo at 500 meters in altitude on south-facing plots. It had a natural fermentation and all the varieties fermented together, adding the whole clusters of the different varieties to the fermentation bins as they were ripe and picked, and it matured in used 500-liter French oak barrels for one year. This is the palest and most delicate of all the Peixes wines to date. It's from a very soft extraction—a kind of equivalent to the Bastarda from their Fedellos do Couto project—and is a perfumed, floral and ethereal red. It has some balsamic notes, aromas of dried rose petals, a touch of beeswax and some spices. It has energy and light, great purity and elegance, all about finesse and nuance. Bravo! 1,300 bottles were filled in May 2020. 94/100 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.