2021 Albamar ‘Ancestral’ Sparkling Albariño

Gentle fizz, delicately sparkling. Crisp. A combination of a few parcels of Albariño, all grown on well draining, sandy soils that produce highly aromatic wines. Notes of lemon with a dust of sea salt, flint, green apple and yellow kiwi. Pair it with roasted artichokes and sheep cheese. 100% Albariño • Granite & slate soils • Aged on lees for 8 months before disgorgement • Bottled with minimal sulfur

From a tiny production, costal vineyards, meticulous artisanal hands-on winemaking. This is the true, small, working-class, unpretentious and glorious winemaking endeavor that produces superb, precise, crisp whites that blow your mind away.

Xurxo Alba makes Albariño by the sea shore. There’s really not much more to say. It’s what he was born to do. It’s what he knows best. He is the personification of Albariño. His cellar is in Cambados, next door to his parents’ restaurant and tienda de ultramarinos, a small shop selling local artisanal foodstuffs. His family has been farming and making Albariño in the Salnés Valley of Rías Baixas for generations but it wasn’t until Xurxo finished his oenological studies that they started bottling and commercializing their own wines in 2006. They own about 2.5 hectares. It’s a hobby. It’s what people do on their free time. It’s a lifestyle that money can’t buy.
He farms and makes sure his farmers farm as naturally as possible, as much as the region permits. In the cellar, spontaneous fermentations with native yeasts are a common denominator in all of his wines. Whether he works the lees or uses oak is on a wine by wine basis, vintage by vintage.