Last month, I embarked on another wine adventure “vacation,” returning to Spain and visiting several wine regions over the course of 16 days. I delved deeper into wine regions I was already fascinated with, fell even more in love with some regions, while being pleasantly surprised by others.

I started my trip with perhaps the worst travel day of my entire life. It involved delayed flights, a missed connection, sold-out trains, 9 hours wandering the Madrid Airport, lost luggage, and a closed rental car desk. Eventually, I made it to my first destination, Cambados, which would serve as my home base in Rias Baixas for three days.

Cambados is located in the Val do Salnés subregion, which has the highest concentration of D.O. Rías Baixas vineyards. So it was a perfect place to plant myself to visit the area and enjoy as much Albariño as I could get my hands on.

I had to cancel all of my plans for arrival days, including exploring Santiago de Compostela and visiting one winery. I had planned my trip to start in Santiago specifically, as it is the end of the Camino de Santiago, the famous pilgrimage route. My trip was a wine pilgrimage that followed the Camino in reverse.

While that was a bummer, I did not let it dampen my spirits. I may have arrived tired and stinky, with a resolve to never fly on Iberia Airlines again, but I also arrived safely and in a vacation mindset, ready to spend my vacation budget like it was monopoly money on wine, octopus, and jamón.

Rías Baixas is the home of one of my favorite white varietals, Albariño. Cambados is considered the capital of Albariño, which makes sense due to the number of wineries located there.

Due to my advanced certification in Spanish Wine, I already knew some of the basics about Rías Baixas in general. I expected to encounter trellised vines, lots of green (Galicia being called “Green Spain”), many women winemakers, perhaps some rain, and light and crisp Albariños with hints of salinity. Those expectations were met, minus the rain, and I learned a whole lot more.

When one envisions a wine region, images of sprawling vineyards covering fairly large areas are usually conjured. While driving around Rias Baixas and arriving at my B&B on the outskirts of the old town of Cambados, I noticed much smaller plots of vineyards occupying the space around houses. Instead of a yard of grass or trees, residents had vines on trellises. The house right next to my B&B had a backyard of vines, as did several houses on the street.

Cambados sloped gently upward from the ocean. My B&B was located up the slope a bit, so from my second-story window, I could readily see the small plots of vines scattered throughout the town all the way to the ocean. It was charming. I was jealous. I wanted my home to have a yard made of Albariño vines on trellises.

Thankfully, by the next morning, my luggage had made it. After a rushed start to the day, sorting out my rental car situation, picking up my luggage, and finally taking a shower, I was off to my first winery visit, Mar de Frades. It was located 10 minutes away from my B&B.

In the Galician language, Mar de Frades means “Sea of Friars.” It is also the name of a spot in the Arousa estuary where pilgrims disembarked on their way to Santiago.

The tasting room was a very modern blue glass building reminiscent of their blue wine bottles. It was surrounded by a portion of their 60 total hectares of vineyards, making them one of the largest in the region. They had an outdoor tasting area; however, it was quite hot that day, in the 80s Fahrenheit, so the tasting was done in their cute little indoor tasting room.

We started with their Traditional method sparkling Albarino, which was delicate, lightly toasty, and chock full of minerality with very tart apples and apple skin.

Their 2022 Albarino smelled of bananas, wet rocks, and flowers. On the palate it was not terribly fruit forward and more mineral driven with noticeable salinity. The light body combined with salty lemon zest made it very thirst quenching.

Lastly, we tasted the Finca Valinas which spent three years on lees in steel and then one more year in the bottle. At first the nose was a bit funky with some petrol and stone fruit; After some air, the tart-tasting stone fruit became a little more ripe. There was more weight to this wine as it just slipped past the medium body line.

Overall my experience at Mar de Frades was very nice and was on brand for a larger producer. It was done in a small group in a well-equipped tasting room and led by an employee of the winery. It was factual, orderly, and maybe felt a little rushed, but I am also a slow taster so I always feel a little rushed no matter how slow I am actually going. The wines were excellent and more than worthy of all the awards they have received, including Finca Valiñas winning World’s Best White Wine at the Concours Mondial De Bruxelles. My expectations on the wine and the experience were met, but not exceeded.

Later that afternoon, I went from a winery with sixty hectares of vineyards to one with six. Located 15 minutes south of Cambados, Lagard de Costa was near the sea in front of the island of A Toxa in the lowlands.  I had stalked a woman named Sonia via email to get an appointment. She was very kind and had agreed to meet me for a tour and tasting on a Sunday afternoon and I really appreciated it.

Sonia turned out to be Sonia Costa, the owner and winemaker. I didn’t put it together previously which was silly on my part.  I blame all the multi-tasking I was doing at the time.

Lagar de Costa is not only a winery but they have a small inn on property and I was immediately annoyed at myself for not booking a stay there. Sonia met me with a smile, as her family hung out on the terrace and swam in the pool.

She took me on a tour of the vineyards, and we got up close and personal. While I knew the soil structure in the area was sand and granite, I hadn’t realized the trellises were made of granite as well. They were beautiful and unique. I had never seen trellises like them before.

Sonia pointed out that the plot of vines to our right had concrete trellises, and that was because it was owned by their neighbors. On the other side of that, there were more granite trellises owned by Lagar de Costa.

She explained the purposes of the trellises which were mainly to combat the effects of the cool, wet climate. I knew one was due to the area being prone to flooding. But the height of the vines also helped combat mildew and disease due to that moisture as well as brought the grapes closer to the sun for better ripening..

She explained Rias Baixas was mainly comprised of many small family-owned vineyards, which made what I had noticed on my arrival make more sense.  Looking out on this particular area of vines, what you couldn’t tell until you got close up was that it was really many individual vineyards not one large one. You could see the slight differences in the trellis types and heights.

As we stood under the trellises, she gave me another fun fact. The height of the trellises was an indication of how tall or short a family was. Since the families worked the land, the trellises were built at a height to which they could reach them. Tall vines equaled a tall family.

Mind blown.

We then walked under the vines and after a few minutes we dead ended into the ocean. The vines stopped and a little quiet beach began. It was a tiny ,beautiful and peaceful spot on this earth that combined the things I loved.

As we walked back towards the winery, we passed the side of one vineyard where you could see the roots of the vines and the layers of sand and friable granite soils.

I love when wineries have areas where you can see below and see all the layers of the soil like a layer cake. You can really better understand the part the soil plays and how it all works.

After a quick tour of their very small and adorable winery (yes, wineries can be adorable,) the two of us sat down to taste her wine. Sonia asked what I wanted to taste and I of course left that up to her discretion.

We started with their largest production of 50,000 bottles per year, Lagar De Costa 2021, made from vines with an average age of 30 years in stainless steel tanks. It smelled of apples, minerality, and underipe oranges. On the palate, it was perfectly tart citrus fruits and apples with a little bit of salinity and a silky texture.

Next we tasted the Maio 2020, which was also made in stainless, but made from their oldest vines of more than fifty years old and spent 6 months on the lees. It smelled of the sea and smoky minerality. It tasted of tart lemons and ash.

Last but not least was the Tradicion 2021 which saw 1 year in an oak cask. The nose was full of a light toast but also something very fresh like lemongrass. It tasted of ripe apples and the oak was so subtly toasty. It was delicious but I felt like it was holding back a bit and needed a little more time for the extra goodness to come bursting through. I tasted potential.  I asked Sonia when she thought this would be at a perfect drinking point, and she said to wait 3 years after bottling.

So I guess I am putting the bottle I bought in the back of my fridge to keep it out of my view until next year so I don’t get tempted before then.

Overall, this was a special tasting experience that exceeded my expectations. I usually expect a more personal experience at a smaller winery, but this was over and above. I felt like I was really starting to understand Rias Baixas as I left Lagar de Costa.

The following day I headed to another larger producer, Pazo de Senorans, with expectations of a large winery experience. I expected a quick tour, a nice tasting, probably with a few other visitors,  and some good wine.

I was so wrong. I got so much more.

Iago, the National Commercial manager, gave me perhaps the most thorough tour I have ever had. He showed me every square inch of the gorgeous Pazo, including the old winery which has since been renovated into event space. He even showed me the “panic room.” We walked through the manicured gardens to get a distant peek of new vineyards that had been planted.

We talked about the many other small vineyards owned by dozens of other families from where they also get grapes and how they manage those yields. The right side of my brain loved talking about that process.

All the while he told the story of the Pazo and its owner, Marisol Bueno, aka “the Queen of Albariño.” We can all thank Marisol Bueno for the existence of the D.O. of Rías Baixas and therefore the proliferation of Albariño.

One fact I always loved about Rias Baixas is that over fifty percent of winemakers are woman. Of course the pioneer of the D.O. is a woman. And according to Iago, everyone who managed the winery, with the exception of him and one other person, was a woman. It made so much sense.

Iago paid just as much attention to the tasting portion of the visit, giving me bonus tastings of liquors they produced and of wine you can’t buy.

None of their wines were simple, even their youngest. Their 2022 Albariño had 5 months of lees aging and 2 years of bottle aging. It was tart, fresh, and floral, while also being leesy with a body that leaned more towards medium than light. This was not a porch-pounder. This was something to take the time to contemplate as you sipped it slowly.

The Tras Los Muros 2020 was a revelation. On both the nose and palate it started off toasty and spicy and then a burst of apples followed.  It was made from 3 parcels located right on the winery property and aged for 6 months in used French oak.

I left Pazo de Senorans completely blown away by my two hour visit. I had just received a small winery experience from one of the largest producers in Rias Baixas. Everything they did had the level of detail of a small winery, from the farming to winemaking to tourism. I was so happy I chose to visit. I almost didn’t due stereotyping its size.  

I guess size really doesn’t matter in some cases.

My last visit took me to further south to the sub region of O Rosal at the mouth of the Mino River.  What was on the other side of the river you ask? Portugal.

In O Rosal, they don’t rely solely on Albariño, although it is still a big part. Caino Blanco and Loureiro are often in the mix or, in some cases, single varietals. 

O Rosal has a warmer microclimate than Val Do Salnes and you could really taste that.  The fruit tasted more ripe, tropical fruit made more of an appearance while the salinity seemed to be less prominent.

I visited Terras Gauda, and the Albariño added some ripe pineapple to the usual citrus notes. The La Mar, which was composed of 90% Caíño Blanco, showed more floral notes.

I was delighted the most by the Terras Guada Black Label.  It was like a refreshing caramel apple.  Like if a caramel apple could still quench your thirst.

It had been an educational and delicious few days in Rías Baixas. While I love a light, crisp, young Albariño, especially in the summertime, I was surprised and delighted by the different versions I tried on this trip. Whether it was lees aging or oak aging, these versions of Albariño were thought-provoking and complex. They were wines to enjoy slowly and contemplate, which is the exact opposite of what I typically like in a white wine.

I am officially a convert and will seek out these wines in the future. Of course, I will always have a few simple, light, and refreshing Albariños on hand.

This trip only reaffirmed my belief that to really know and understand a particular region, you have to go there and experience it in the moment. Change might happen quicker or slower in different parts of the world, but it is always happening.

They will probably always produce young, crisp, and light versions of Albariño because the varietal shines in that way. The quality is usually well beyond the price point, which is why I think it’s crazy not to reach for the $12-$15 Albariño when you are looking for that style.

However that is not all there is to Albariño. All the wineries I visited had bottlings with extended lees aging, barrel aging, and/or longer bottling aging.  I would never have really understood this unless I visited. Yes, I’ve read about this, but unless you see and taste it in the place, it really doesn’t register as fact.

I look forward to what’s next for Rias Baixas, because being run by women, I have no doubt it will keep moving forward and evolving.