The Rías Baixas D.O. of Spain - The Albariño Capital of the World

[Music] Welcome to Wine for Normal People, the podcast for people who like wine, but not the snobbery that goes with it. [Music] I'm your host Elizabeth Schneider, author of the Wine for Normal People book and certified wine dork. If you haven't ordered from grapes the wine company yet, what are you waiting for? This is my sponsor at their small business and a physical store in white pleans New York, and they have a great selection and just launched a fantastic user-friendly new website. Daniel and his team shipped to 40 states, so wherever you're listening from, there's a good chance he can get you exactly what you want. Go to grapesthewinecode.com right now, and when you check out put WFMP in the special instructions for discount on shipping, more details in the middle of the show. Well, a couple of administrative things and the first thing is come over October is coming up and I am teaching four abbreviated wine classes. If you've never taken a class before and you're interested, though mostly be on wine Wednesdays except the first one because I'm going to Texas Hill Country to go explore that region. But I will be there on Thursday, the first Thursday in October and for the rest of the wine Wednesdays. So it's on my Instagram and I will be putting a link for registration on my site. Also, I just haven't gotten around to it, but you should register. It will be on YouTube. It's just a little bit easier for us to broadcast that way, but I really thank the come over October folks for letting me do this because I think it's really exciting and hopefully you can grab a couple of friends and make it a real come over October. October come to one come to all four check them out today, really excited for the partnership and to get people together in October. That's the whole point. There is that and I'm just going to say my Halloween decorations are already almost up for those of you who have been with me a long time. You know, I'm obsessed with Halloween. I will be posting pictures. Don't worry. It's going to be even bigger this year. Lots of really I'm so obsessed with Halloween. It's crazy. I want to remind you before we get into res by Shus and the beautiful algorithms of this area. And you know, I really love supporting female wine makers more than 50% of the wine makers are female in res by Shus. And I'll explain why, but it is a really, really great feature of this area. If you want to thank the patrons again, Patreon slowed down a lot. So if you love this show and you wanted to continue, please check it out patreon.com/wine for normal people. And I have a small list, but I need to thank Tammy C Alex S Martin F Jack D and a very, very special thanks to Fernando who is I had announced before my friend Christina who I knew in college and I have reconnected over wine. It's so exciting. Fernando is her husband. Fernando, like when are we getting together? I'm coming down to Puerto Rico. We're going to make this happen soon. I can't wait to meet you. Anyway, special shout out. Sorry, it took so long. I really apologize. And reminder that the classes our lives are raw is this week. I have GSM building the GSM blend, which is filling up pretty fast by the way. The wines of the lower Valley. There's the food wine pairing class. So I hope you'll check them out wine for normal people.com/classes. And again, you know, why not in October? You could use that as an opportunity if you don't want to come to the mini classes. For come over October, you can obviously pay and take a class with me. Now let's get to Rias by Shus. Now, this is a really interesting area for so many reasons, historically, especially, but also from the fact that this is a very different part of Spain. We are not in Ribeiro del Duelo Land or Priorat, where it is barren, pretty much. And honestly, those grapes are the future for us because they can stand heat and dryness. And those are great. But that is not the situation in Rias by Shus. Our alobarinho is the main grape. Now, I'm mentioning a bunch of places. Rias by Shus is the Dio. It's the denominación de Origen. It is in a part of Spain called Galicia. This is the far northwest corner of Spain. And it is very different because it's green. It's verdant. It's lush. The Atlantic Ocean is in the west. You have the Cantabrian Sea in the north that goes out to the Atlantic Ocean. This region is connected to the Vino Verde region in Portugal. It's just separated from a river called the Minio River, which is very important here. Galicia is on the Atlantic coastline. This is a very unique geography. First of all, you have a lot of rivers here that are emptying out into the Atlantic. Those rivers are going to influence a lot of the wine growing here. They also have something that you really don't see anywhere in this part of the world. They're essentially fjords, inlets. They are Rias. That's what Rias means. So Rias by Shus means low estuaries. They're estuaries where saltwater meets fresh water because there are so many rivers. They're mainly in the province of Ponte Vedra, which is the main city, and also in the southern portion of the Acaruna province. And Alibarino, as I mentioned, and as you know, because you've had it before, likely, is the main grape. There are other grapes here, but 99% of the production in Rias by Shus is white wine. It's not a big region. 10,700 acres or 4,330 hectares. But there are more than 22,800 vineyards. These are tiny plots, family owned vineyards, also family owned wineries for the most part. There are 5,000 growers that farm those 22,800 plots, and just 180 producers. So more growers by many than producers. And as I mentioned, more than 50% are women winemakers. And I'm going to tell you why later. It has to do with where they're located. Interestingly enough, there's more land under vine in Rias by Shus. Then there are in all four of the other denominations, de orijanes or dios in Galicia combined. And those others don't do a lot of Alibarino because they're further inland. They do the red grape mencia. They do white godeo and a bunch of other grapes. So that's Ribeiro, Valoras, Monterey, Ribeira Sacra. I've talked about these a few times on the show. Probably should do a refresh on those at some point. But they are excellent wines. Just super small. Unlike Alibarino, which, look, modern Rias by Shus is only about 40 years old. And mostly before that, before that 40-year mark, people were making a lot of red wine. But the history here stretches back so far. So let's go into that now. In around 137 BCE, the Romans came. They called the area Galicia because they conquered a Celtic tribe called the Galasi that had settled in this area and had been there 2500 years before the Romans came in and conquered. We don't know that they did wine making per se. But like everywhere, Romans started viticulture in earnest. They knew what they were doing. It was a serious trade. We still use many of the techniques that they employed. We certainly use the land that they scouted. So the Romans started viticulture and trade here. And then we fast forward to the medieval period. So many times, when I've talked about Spain, Portugal, southern France, I have mentioned El Camino, Camino de Santiago, which is the way of St. James. And it's become a pop culture phenomenon in many ways. In the medieval period, why the Camino is there, if you're not sure, but you've heard of it before, the remains of Santo Santiago or St. James, the Apostle were found in Compastela. Santiago means James in Spanish. And this led to an explosion. In Compastela, all of a sudden, now there's the remains of an Apostle. Okay, so everyone needs to make a pilgrimage here. The Catholic Church built a giant church over the Apostles' tomb. They began receiving pilgrims. The pilgrimage walk came from France over the Pyrenees. You had people coming, of course, from Spain, from Portugal. People were descending upon Santiago de Compastela. The churches and the monasteries formed along the Camino. That served obviously the spiritual needs of people on this pilgrimage, but also food and wine. And wine was the preferred beverage of Spanish monks who were setting up the monasteries and churches along this route. Mainly, they were benedictine monks. Now, the benedictine monks, because this area became so important for the church, they came from Cluny in Burgundy. They were professional wine makers. They knew all about vineyards. They came to supervise the new centers of religion and of viticulture. Because the monks were here, and it was the benedictines, specifically the sistercian monks traveling from Burgundy, there is folklore. That says that Alburino was brought to Spain. by those monks from Burgundy. And there has never been an Iota of proof, and finally, in 2020, the Australians did an analysis on Alberingo, and they found that it was a descendant of a wild Spanish grape that was domesticated, probably starting with the Romans. This grape has been in Galicia for a very long time. Now, the monks really, really liked this grape because it was a high-quality grape. So as they spread out from Santiago de Compostela to make new monasteries in the region, we see cultivation of grapes in places like Valdo Salnes, the Salnes Valley, Orosal. We have a lot of documentation about what went on until the 1700s when the Spanish government seized property from the church and sold it to wealthy aristocrats who continued winemaking. Again, that was the big thing. Obviously the French Revolution, 1789, things started to change the church lost a lot of control in Spain and France all over the place. Why are more than 50% of the winemakers in Riesbyschus women? We're in a country that is not necessarily known for equality for women. Spain is known for a machismo, male-dominated culture. But in this area, Northwest Spain on the Atlantic Ocean, what did people do for profession? They were a sea-faring culture because of the coastline. The men went to sea, even if just for a brief time, they were fishing or they went exploring and they went farther afield. And there was no one there to mind the vineyards or the land at the agriculture except the women. Women have run the vineyards and other crops in Riesbyschus for centuries upon centuries. And today, that has not changed. Women are at the forefront with new styles, new winemaking techniques. They are educated, they are on the regulatory council. They have a huge voice. So if you are someone who likes to support female winemakers, Riesbyschus chances are you're probably gonna find a female winemaker making the wine that you love because there's more than 50% of the producers are women. Modern era, let's talk about that. 1851, powdery mildew or oh yum, hit Galicia. Now this is a nightmare for this area because whereas yes, powdery mildew is a problem for other regions and continues to be. The conditions for mildew is that you need something humid and rainy and gentle temperatures. So powdery mildew was very happy here. The vineyards turned gray basically. It destroyed vineyards on the Minio River. There was starvation and poverty people could not grow grapes. And it took 10 years, we talk a lot about philoxero which did take longer to treat, but sulfur treatments did not come for 10 years. So this mildew, which no one knew how to combat, was around from 1851 to 1861. There was a real one, two, three punch because downy mildew, another type of mildew arrived in 1885 but at that point they already had the solution, pretty much what it's called the Bordeaux mix, copper sulfate, lime, water, and you sprayed that on your vineyards. The challenge there is that it was expensive. So growers could barely live off of what they made from wine. Now philoxera did come to this area and it was a problem that little root louse that sucks on the roots of vine. It winds up killing the vine very, very quickly. But philoxera was a huge problem in France where it started, it was imported from the U.S. on American grape vines that were planted for hobby, sadly. Philoxera hit Spain and it hit Spain very, very hard in some places, although Spain did escape a lot of the major damage and a solution came quicker because of the purities they were natural break. But in Riaspiches in particular, there wasn't a whole lot of damage because we are right up against the Atlantic Ocean. Sandy soils. Philoxera does not like sand. So there are tons of pre-philoxera vines in the Valdosalnes from at least the late 1700s. That said, they still had issues and they still had to replant. So when they did replant, most of Pontavédra planted hybrids. So they wouldn't have to graft because what happened is that a lot of their native grapes were not grafting well onto American rootstock, which is how you stopped the root louse. What did do well were hybrids. Ibridos protatores directos HPD, direct producer hybrids. Since nearly half the vidis American graphs failed after planting, they decided to plant these hybrids. The problem actually turned out that these hybrids that they thought were so great were actually susceptible to philoxera. So it didn't solve any problems. And again, it wasn't like a huge disaster because of the sand, but over the next couple of decades, the hybrids became the majority of vines. Now, the other thing is that reds were very popular. Reds at higher yields gave people better income. So even though they probably weren't as good as the whites, the reds were more profitable, and that's all they really cared about, the hybrids and the reds. They needed reliable croppers. Alburino was either seen as something cheaper, cheerful, or it was seen as a drink for wealthy landowners who had the luxury of time. They made it in very small quantities. Alburino actually does much better with age. Just even a year or two will really improve the grape and they knew that it would take the edge off the acidity. So only the wealthy were enjoying Alburino at that time. Alburino started to gain some ground. And by 1953, there was a producer Bernardo Quintanilla. He was a lawyer from Vigo, which is a small area in Galicia. And he had a vineyard of Alburino and he challenged his neighbor, Ernesto Zarate, to a competition of wines. So in August 28th, he said, "My wines are better than yours," and we should have a competition. On August 28th, 1953, they had the conclurso de Alburino, the Alburino competition. And actually, we're not the only growers, they invited acquaintances to join, and they all presented their wines and guess what? Neither Quintanilla nor Zarate won. Another local farmer won, they were blind tested, so good for them. But this became a yearly event, and 70 years later, the festa del Alburino is something that in the summer, they do every year. And I mention it because this competition became something that people looked forward to, and it's part of how the grape became so well-known. But at the end of the 1970s, Alburino had caught on. It was very popular in Galicia, then it caught on in all of Spain. And that is when the area of Ria Spaisa started to take shape. Now Alburino had flipped the script. It was triple the price of red wines. The local growers formed a co-op because they have so many small vineyards that really needed to do that. And the demand in something like the Copa Estela, which still is a pilgrimage point and gets lots of tourism, was very high. So producers started to step up their game. They had a little bit of money to do this. They improved the technology and the 70 stainless steel tanks. Temperature controlled fermentations, which I have said on numerous occasions, is probably the most important innovation in wine. It made clean, drinkable wines and made it pretty easy to make them. Still though, even though Alburino was popular and it was popular locally and in parts of Spain, they were not the most important wines, even in Galicia. There were low quality high alcohol, fruity wines that were from warmer areas that were more popular. And the real sin was that distributors mixed these wines with a little bit of Alburino and then sold them as Alburino from Galicia so that they could get the money for the wines. At this point, in the 1980s, no one was using Rias Baixas. It wasn't a thing. And most people didn't even call it Alburino. They didn't call it the grape. They ordered wines by the subzone. So they would order condado or a Rosal or a Salinas. I'll talk about the sub regions a little bit later in the show. But some producers didn't use any labels so people didn't even know where the wine was from or what it was. At this point, because there was this hodgepodge of labeling and distributors mixing fruity wines from Castilla with Galicia and wines, they decided that they wanted to regulate this fake Alburino and they wanted to make sure that there was a mark of quality. So in 1981, they set up the denominations Especifica Alburino. This applied only two wines made with Alburino in any part of Galicia to try to regulate Alburino. A few years later, Spain joined the European economic community as the EU was called back then. This made the denomination for Alburino moot because they had to fall in line with the rest of Europe. And European law says that no one can claim a specific variety in an appellation. Now, we have come to associate some areas with specific grapes, but the grape has to be named with a place because pedios protected designations. origins of origin are protectable. A grape is not a protectable name in an appellation. As they joined the EEC, they decided to apply for the denominations de Origen, the DO, but they had another catch. The law required that at least 25% of the DO's vineyard be planted to the top grape varieties that they wanted to add into the DO, and they needed to be registered with the Concejo Regulator or the Regulatory Council. In Ponte Vedra, remember we talked about the hybrids still in the 80s, up to 80 or 90% were hybrid varieties in a lot of the vineyards. So the problem is that some of the areas that we know best for ablerino today, specifically the Salinas Valley Orosal Condado Dote, were excluded from the new appellation. They were given a provision that when they reached 25% of planted area for the authorized varieties, alborino being the main one, but there are a few others, they were allowed to join the DO and put that on the label. This is in around 1988, and producers recognized that if they didn't have these three main regions in the DO, there was really no point in having it at all. They wanted to tie it together around alborino, which was the main grape that they were trying to make and be known for. They had to find vineyards and see if there was enough alborino and then convince growers to register their vines if they did have enough alborino, but then replace hybrids with alborino, and this was hard to do. I mean, these growers were super skeptical, but by July 4, 1988, the new wine appellation was approved with 30 wineries. The catch was that because there were still so many hybrid varieties, the Salna's Valley, Oversal, and Condano Dote were temporarily excluded from the new appellation. What's so crazy is that this was a new wine region. They built this from the ground up, they brought back a grape that was kind of obscure, and the vines now cover 4,000 hectares, and they were just 240 hectares or 500 acres 30 years ago. Today, 36 million bottles are sold to 70 countries. There are three co-ops, they're super high quality condes, de alabare, Paco y Lola, which I love, they make such great wines, and Martin Codax, which was very important because they signed a deal with the ENJ Gallo winery in California for distribution. That co-op got a big boost for the region, for Alberino, and for them as well. There's so much demand even today, the people are concerned that there's some cutting of corners and that the flavors and the quality is going to go down. They need to stay relevant, but I think as you hear about the different styles that are becoming more prevalent, you'll see that the producers are on the right track. Okay, let's take a step away from the podcast. I really don't want to sound like Sally Strothers, but Patreon has not gotten a lot of new members. I definitely need your support if we're going to keep the podcast going. P-A-T-R-E-O-N dot com slash wine for normal people. Hey, look, I'm having a whole bunch of special events in the fall. Definitely don't want to miss them. Don't have FOMO and look at them on Instagram. Definitely join. It starts at $3 a month. What do you have to lose? Patreon dot com slash wine for normal people. Super fun, a fantastic community, and you get to learn about wine. Classes, once again, wine for normal people dot com slash classes, Sarah around the world is coming up and do not forget there are recorded classes on my site now. You asked, I delivered. So there are pre-recorded classes. Many of you are starting to take them. That is fantastic. Check them out. You can go at your own pace. You can rewind. You can pause. You can drink as many wines as you want. You can space it out over the week or the month or whatever. So they are on your schedule. Those are the recorded classes. Those are also on wine for normal people dot com slash classes. In addition to the live classes, which I'm so glad many of you are still taking the GSM Blend class is coming up. Grinosh, Sarah, Moved. Wine to the Loire Valley and Sarah. So check those out today. And now, can I tell you about grapes, the wine company. My sponsor, their place you should be shopping online, grapes, the wineco.com, especially with their new site. And the Wall Street Journal named one of the most influential wine retailers in America. The owner, Daniel Posner, is a friend of mine. He's been in wine for more than 25 years. And his team is fabulous. You tell them what you like, what you want to spend. They'll find it for you, whether you're ordering in person or online grapes. The wine company is a physical shop in white planes, New York. They have more than 3000 wines in stock, including small producers you've heard on the show. Another really key thing here is that they're based in New York. So Daniel and his team have access to nearly anything imported into the country since almost everything comes through New York City first. If you're looking for something hard to find, right to grapes, the wine company and ask them to help you chances are they can deliver. And if you're taking a wine for normal people class, there are discounted packs available for purchase. When you sign up, I'm going to be posting them on Patreon too. So if anyone wants to buy them, whether you're taking a class or not, I select all the wines. So they come with the wine for normal people's stamp of approval and they are at great prices. When you shop at grapes, the wine company, you'll get 15% of any 12 bottles. It is a great deal. Go to grapesthewineco.com, type in WFNP in the special instructions for discount on shipping. And if you're in the New York metro area, delivery is free. What are you waiting for? grapesthewineco.com. And now let's get back to the show. Let's talk about the climate. This is a true maritime climate. This is not modified. It's cold. It's humid. It's wet. It's marine terroir. Ocean breezes fog. The spring can be wet. So you have problems with mildews and flowering as I discussed with Downey and Powdery mildew. The summer is drier, but it's cool here. So it takes a long time to ripen grapes properly and get the right balance between the sugar and the acidity. In general, the maximum temperatures in the summer are rarely going to exceed 86 degrees Fahrenheit or 30 degrees Celsius. And they are moderated. So they only drop to about zero degrees Celsius or 32 degrees Fahrenheit in December and January. One of the problems, marine winds, they can wreck trellises. They can take grapes off of vines. The other thing, it's extremely rainy. In Galicia, they get between 63 and 78 inches per year or 1600 millimeters to 2000 millimeters. This is where we get green span. It's so lush because of the rain. Now, this requires very special viticulture because you have to make sure that there's air flow through the canopy to dry out all of that rain. High trellises are very, very important. Keep it off the ground, keep it dry, keep air flowing in. Organic and biodynamic are pretty much off the table here. Sustainables the best they can do because it's just too unpredictable and they will need to use sprays against mildew and mold especially. The land, as I mentioned, has a lot of rivers that are criss-crossing all around. There's the craggy coastline with the estuaries on the Atlantic and the fjords, so you have a cooling effect. These rias, these inlets are going to extend 90 miles or 145 kilometers from Santiago de Compostela all the way down to the Portuguese border. They also create very special conditions for breezes, for allowing the grapes to have this long, cool, growing season. The other thing is elevation. The fjords are raised 100 to 300 meters, 330 to 985 feet. The soil types are pretty uniform. Granite is the main soil here. The whole region is built on a granite bedrock and actually the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela is made out of granite as are many of the buildings here as well as these high canopies that they have to put the grapes on to dry them. They're called parrots. The parrots are granite pillars that they hang the vines between on wire that allows them more airflow because they are up high. These wines, because they are growing on granite, there's some shist here and a lot of alluvial soils because of all of those criss-crossing rivers and tributaries. You have a lot of alluvial and colluvial soils out of the mountains. You get a lot of mineral note in this wine, also a lot of acidity. Things growing on granitic soils tend to be more acidic. We can see that in Bogeley, we can see it in the northern groan. It does tend to bring out a lot of acidity. What are the grapes? Well, I've already talked about this. This is alburino country. 95% of production is alburino. And if you know alburino, you know that it is acidic. It has a lot of peachy apricot notes, nectarine notes. It's extremely aromatic, ripe citrus floral. And then there's a bit of salinity. I find that this term is being abused a lot. People are saying that everything has salinity. But because we are on the water, you may get a salty sensation. These places are so influenced by the Atlantic that there is real salinity here. The body of alburino is sometimes light and often medium body, especially in the ones that imported into the US. Now, I am focusing on alburino, but there are 12 permitted grapes in Riespaisha. In addition to alburino, again, 95% of production, you have some of the grapes of vignol there. L'Oreiro. It is used in blends. It's not a standalone grape here. or most of the time in Portugal, in Vino Verde, but these are floral, herbal, citrusy. They're used actually in a sub-area called Orosal Trejadora. This is a blending grape, floral, apple perinots. It's also used more in Portugal called Trejadora, there, as opposed to Trejadora in Spain. There's some other minor grapes, turantes, godeos, and then there are reds as well, which we may seem more of, cañotinto, castaniel, espadero, lorero, tinto, suson, mencia, brancellal, and doxal. These are local grapes that, who knows, I'm just putting it out there, because these wines are having some success locally. What about the vineyard? Well, yields have to be low, and I will say it again and again. You have to chose the alberino to prevent that rot from the humidity and rain, and you also need it up high so it can get more sun, and there's got to be even ripening. These potas are hugely important because they counter humidity. They are about seven feet or two meters high, so threes is flow in. They are going to prevent nildu, they're going to even the ripening, and those ripened bunches are going to form almost a ceiling like canopy. When they harvested, it's a lot of work. It's hand harvested, the pickers stand on grape bins or on ladders to pick, and they put them in small vats to protect the alberino so that when it comes into the winery, it's pretty pristine. There are some vineyards that use the French cordon system, the double cordon system, but mostly they are still growing on potas, and some of them have gone to cordon and then moved back to the traditional way. The way that this works is that most pateus, because there's so many small plots, and there's so many growers, they're going to get grapes from a lot of growers and parcels across generally their sub-region, but it could be across all of Ria's bichoth. So the wines represent either the whole sub-region or the whole region, but there are big differences between the inland vineyards and the coastal vineyards. Those are real differences. It's a lot cooler near the coast, so you get more acidic, minerally, as they call them like linear wines with a lighter body, and inland you get lusher plusher wines. So blending is a good way to maintain that consistency. Irrigation is permitted in Ria's bichoth, but older vineyards don't usually use it. Some of the younger vineyards will get established, but with more than 70 inches of rainy year, you generally don't need irrigation, although you might need it in targeted spots. Single vineyard wines are popular. Also, most bodegas have a specific site that they think is the best, so they'll do a separate bottling, hard to get in the US, but you can definitely find them there. Those tend to be more savoury, more age-worthy. For wine making, now this is a really important point when we talk about aliburino from Ria's bichoth. Because when we're talking about the terroir and the growing conditions, it is almost identical to what you're going to find in Portugal, in Vino Verde. The aliburino is coming out of Vino Verde, beautiful. They're all grown right on the Spanish border, incidentally, right on the Vino River. But there's a big difference in wine making. So if you find that you don't love aliburino from Vino Verde or Portugal, but you really love aliburino from Spain, there's reasons for that. So let me explain some of the things that they do here that they do not do in Portugal for the most part. One of the major things that they do in Ria's bichoth is pre-fermentation maceration. So they will press the grapes lightly and then you have the juice, the pulp, the skins, and they do maceration. They do it at low temperatures. They can do it for a couple of days to get structure, complexity, more fullness, more flavor. That is a big difference between Spain and Portugal when it comes to aliburino or aliburino. Wild yeast. Another thing that they prefer to use here, they do that also in Vino Verde. But while this is extremely common to use here, people don't like the idea of anoculated yeast if they don't have to use it. Ria's bichoth producers also have been experimenting with barrel fermentation and aging. This can add flavors and texture, it can add aging potential. It's more common in right-per-years. Ocast to have something to stand up to, you need bigger fruit in order to do that. Malolactic fermentation. That secondary fermentation that turns hard malac acid into softer lactic acid, it can be blocked. But in Spain, they tend not to do that. They tend to do that much more in Portugal, so you'll get a much more biting version of aliburino in Portugal, not always, but sometimes. In Spain, it's quite common to let the wine complete partial or full malalactic fermentation to give it a softer profile. And the other thing that they do is extended li's contact, which they call sobre lias on the li's. This adds texture and flavor, and these are wines with much longer aging potential. More serious wines, you're going to see maybe barrel fermentation and aging. You will absolutely see extended li's contact, and you will see a maceration process to give the wines a little bit more giddy up. There are a lot of styles that are permitted. Rios paixas, just like everywhere in Spain, is regulated by a consejo reglador. This is a group that conducts vineyard inspections, all year to make sure growers are following the rules about approved grape varieties, planting density, pruning, training, yields. Everything has to line up after the harvest. They inspect the sellers to make sure that the volume of grapes in the winery lines up with the volume that was harvested. That's been a problem in France before, frankly, in the Languaduc especially. And then they have a tasting committee from the consejo that samples each vat of wine for quality and tapicity. So there are eight styles that are permitted in the Dio, and I don't think most people know that because most of the things that we see are rios paixas al barigno. We don't actually see much rios paixas, which is a separate population or wine style. Old barigno, in general, bone dry aromatic, lots of, as I mentioned, citrus, white peach, pineapple, mango, honey cycle, it can be peppery. It just depends. It depends on the sub region, growing conditions, vintage, but the styles are the following. You can have rios paixas. All that means, if you see it on a bottle, is that the wine is 100% from rios paixas. It can be a blend of varieties. Most rios paixas wines are a mix of things, so just keep that in mind. What you're looking for if you want al barigno is its own appellation rios paixas al barigno. Now this is how they get around the EU laws. They put the name of the place and then the grape, which is completely legal. This is required to be 100% al barigno, a minimum of 11.3% alcohol by volume, so they want some ripeness here. They're not looking for underripe grapes. It can come from any region that is covered by the rios paixas Dio. Then they have tinto, again, they make some red, less than 1% of production. That's rios paixas tinto, rios paixas barica, white or red that's been aged in oak with a minimum of 11.5% alcohol again, so it can stand up to the oak. They're trying to ensure that you don't have an oak bomb that doesn't always happen, but they can try to regulate it. And then you have specific sub zones. There are three that are allowed on the label, rios paixas valdos alnes, rios paixas condaro dotei, and rios paixas o rozal. For all of those 100% of the grapes have to be from the sub region, and all of them are a minimum of 70% al barigno, but they can be mixed with other white grapes, as long as they are 100% from the sub region. Finally, there's rios paixas espumosos, there's barely any of this, but it is sparkling wine made in the traditional method, the champagne method. Now, I keep talking about these sub zones, so we'll wrap with the sub zones. The sub zones are important. If you can find them, they are pretty easy to identify because there are very distinct migra climates and geological differences. Now, I have seen the sub regions on bottles a little bit more often than I used to, so that's encouraging. But basically, each area has different proximity to the ocean and different proximity to its own river. So, for instance, valdos alnes, which I keep talking about is on the Umiya River, which is an important river that increases air flow. O rozal and condaro dotei are on the Minio River and it's tributaries, so this is on the Portuguese border, very different from valdos alnes. And then, the newer Appalachians, Soto Mayor, has the Verdugo River and Roberto Uya is on the Uya River. These tributaries are all going to help with air flow and breezes and alluvial soils. These five Appalachians can make red or white, but mostly they're all aburrinho. I'm going to talk about the three really important ones I've already mentioned them, and then we can get into the two smaller newer ones. Valdos alnes is the name you really need to know in the world of Riaspaishas. This is the epicenter of the region. It's the northern half of the region. It's the oldest zone. It's the original subzone. It is home to the most wineries and vineyards, 60% of planted vineyard of Riaspaishas is in Valdos alnes. This is also likely where alborrinho originated. It's the biggest producing subzone, obviously, with all those vineyards. It's on the Atlantic. It has a very long Atlantic coastline. North to south, there's fjords. There's res. This appellation is surrounded by water on three sides. It is the coolest and the wettest region. It has those granite soils, also alluvial soils from the rivers. These wines tend to be very crisp, green, herbal, with white pepper and mint notes. With a very strong salinity, minerality, they can be smoky and savory. In warmer years, they're more tropical, more like tangerine, maybe, with leaves aging. They're going to be smoother, silkier, and more minimally. Now, in Valdo San Nez, you can blend the grapes if you like 70% alberino with l'orero, trejadura, and cainho blanco. But a lot of people do 100% alberino, again, easier to sell, easier to explain. Then we go south to the two Portuguese border areas. There's a lot of alluvial soils, a little less granite. Granite is underneath more in condado dote, and oh, rosal. These regions are warmer. You're going to get fuller wines. Condado dote has a funny name. It's the county of tea. Tea is a tributary of the Minio River. It's the second-largest subzone, 20% of the vineyard area, and it's further inland than the other subzones, 25 to 50 km inland or 16 to 32 miles inland from the Atlantic. It's very rugged and mountainous, and it's on the Portuguese border. I have seen condado dote, but I've never been there. I've been to Vino Verde. It is really beautiful. It has the hottest days of any of the sub-regions of Riaspaishas and the coolest nights. There's these big, diurnal temperatures swings. It can get really hot, though, in the summertime. Already, you should be thinking these styles are probably rich and lush with lots of ripeness. They are tropical mineral notes, still acidic, but because of the texture and all of the plushness and the fruitiness, you will sense that acidity less. If you like a bigger alborinho, you can seek out wines from condado dote. They are allowed, if it says condado dote, on the label 70% alborinho with trejadura. Then we get to Oro Sal, the neighbor of condado dote, and the third-largest sub-region at 13% of the vineyard area. This is west of the condado dote, along the Minio River and the Portuguese border, but this goes all the way to the Atlantic coast, and this area has inland a warmer climate, and near the coast, a cooler, sunnier climate actually than Valdo Salnes. It's much cooler than condado dote, but warmer than Valdo Salnes. Terrorist vineyards on river banks, because it is so rugged and mountainous, granite bedrock, alluvial soils. You can use lorero, cano blanco, and you can blend it with alborinho, or have a stand on alborinho if you want. Oro Sal wines tend to be fruity with citrus, and peach, herbal notes lemon, verbina, white flowers, lemon curd. They are soft wines. They're fuller than Valdo Salnes, but still minerally and spicy. They have less salinity than the wines of Salnes, and they are a little bit more medium-bodied versus the fuller-bodied wines of condado dote. There are two other sub-regions. Sota Mayor, yes, like the Supreme Court Justice, that is the name of it, 1996. It was granted sub-deo status. It's the smallest sub-zone of Riespaisas. It's on the Atlantic coast. It's just south of Valdo Salnes in the middle of the region. On some hills, light sandy soils on granite bedrock, some nice pleasant wines. Ribeira do Uya, that's the newest sub-region. It got its designation in 2000. It's the northernmost. Actually, this is north of Valdo Salnes. It's southeast Santiago de Compastela. It's landlocked. It's bisected by the Uya River. Alluvial soils tend to create lighter wines. Five sub-regions, the three that are very important to know, Valdo Salnes, were most of the wine comes from condado dote and Oro Sal, which are on the Portuguese border. A lot of history there, and those wines tend to be fuller, because they're a little farther south, and it's warmer. An interesting area from so many different angles. The history, the geology, these Rias, or inlets, all of the rain and how they manage that, the specific type of Paras, the canopies that they grow, these grapes on. It all leads to just a beautiful style. Some of you might be thinking I've mentioned it a couple times. I'm just going to end with this. What's the difference between Portuguese alvardinho and Spanish albardinho from Riaspaisas? This is not a podcast on albardinho specifically, but in general, the style in Spain is much more plush and lush. They do more wine-making stuff to albardinho, and that leads to a softer mouth feel. It leads to bigger wines. They have a bunch of different sub-regions, and honestly, as we know, these borders between Spain and Portugal, and really any country, geology and mother nature don't know what those borders are. This is just a continuation of Vinho Verde, but there are some very distinctive parts of Riaspaisas, especially as you go north that differ from Melgasau and Montsau in Portugal, which is right on the Vinho River as well. Those wines from Portugal are beautiful. They are tasty. Albardinho is still shining. It's still showing its peachiness and its citrus and minerality, but it is much, much more acidic coming out of Portugal for the most part. And albardinho coming out of Spain is softer, plusher, and lusher. That's the main difference, and the gap has shrunk a lot as Portuguese producers have seen how much success, frankly. Albardinho has had. Still, there's a difference. And albardinho, I would say, is much more acidic. So if you're thinking about food pairing, you need something super, super acidic. Maybe albardinho might be better. If you want a sipper or something with cheese or a very nice pairing with pretty much anything, albardinho would be a very safe bet. So that's Riaspaisas. I know we're coming to the end of the summer, but because Riaspaisas has some body and weight, it can also be a great transition wine into fall. Look for these fuller styles. See if you can find them, see if you can identify them, and you can see the differences in all of the things that they're doing in Riaspaisas. And of course, I will once again say, I love supporting women producers, so there's that. So that is Riaspaisas. And with that, this has been another episode of Wine for Normal People. Thank you so much for listening, and I will catch you next time.