BONUS: Exploring Galicia and Portugal

“To work by animal traction, 40% grade vineyards, on slate, at 1,000m of altitude, that are 45 minutes from anything else—all the best producers are going more and more into geographically specific bottlings.” – Max Working

In December, we sent our Iberian wine specialists to take the pulse of what’s new and exciting in Portugal and Galicia. Matt Wolfe and Max Working tasted the wines of nine producers from Bierzo to Porto and returned with a wealth of stories, wineries to watch, and two souvenir tastevins from their surprise induction into a secret society. They reveal how some producers are returning to the past to move forward, what makes farming biodynamically so difficult here, why organic Alvarinho is so rare.

The itinerary included visits with Dominio do Bibei, Anselmo Mendes, Aphros, Albamar, Bodegas Fulcro, Raúl Pérez, Filipa Pato & William Wouters, Revela, and Kopke.

Automatically generated transcripts often make mistakes. Find a corrected version here.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 1:08 The Green Spain – Galicia
• 5:32 Dominio do Bibei
• 8:46 Alvarinho from Anselmo Mendes
• 10:47 Loureiro from Aphros
• 14:15 Biodynamic Albariño from Albamar
• 17:41 Bodegas Fulcro
• 21:03 A quick tangent on trees
• 22:40 Raúl Pérez
• 32:09 Filipa Pato and William Wouters
• 34:50 Joining the Confraria dos Enófilos da Bairrada
• 38:45 Alfrocheiro and Encruzado from Revela
• 41:34 Kopke

Transcript

Introduction

Max Working 0:03

To work by animal traction, 40% grade vineyards, on slate, at a thousand meters of altitude, that are 45 minutes away from anything else—all the best producers are going more and more into more geographically specific bottlings.

Harmon Skurnik 0:23

Hey, this is Harmon Skurnik, and welcome to Skurnik Unfiltered. Today we have a bonus episode. And I'm joined by our illustrious Ilberian portfolio team, led by Max Working. Hey Max.

Max Working 0:38

What's up, Harmon?

Harmon Skurnik 0:39

And his ambassador. Sounds very diplomatic, Matt Wolfe.

Matt Wolfe 0:43

What's going on?

Harmon Skurnik 0:44

Lobo.

Max Working 0:45

Trying to teach you the diplomacy part.

Matt Wolfe 0:46

Yeah, we're working on it still.

Harmon Skurnik 0:48

You guys just returned from a trip to Spain and Portugal, which are the two Iberian countries that you guys live, breathe, and eat. How was it?

The Green Spain – Galicia

Max Working 0:57

Amazing as always. At the helm of this portfolio of the company, I end up traveling a lot more frequently in Spain than Portugal. So it's always nice to get back to Portugal. But Galicia, you know, this northwest corner of Spain that is directly adjacent to northern Portugal is just one of my absolute favorite parts of Spain. I'm always banging the drum for it, trying to interest more Americans in getting off the beaten path of your more typical Spanish destinations to get there.

Harmon Skurnik 1:29

Otherwise known as the Green Spain, isn't that right?

Max Working 1:33

Literally, the landscape is physically greener due to higher rainfall, lusher vegetation than what most people think of as Spain, like more Mediterranean.

Harmon Skurnik 1:43

When you think of Spanish wine, you have a sort of stereotype in your mind. Galicia is not really that stereotype, is it?

Matt Wolfe 1:50

I think that there's a shift happening, if not already entirely happened, mainly due to the popularity of the grape Albariño, which I think is now becoming synonymous with the other famous two or three either styles or grape varieties of Spain. But I think that people, to Max's point, I think people are consuming it, but not necessarily traveling to the place where it's most famously made.

Harmon Skurnik 2:16

Or they may not even know where it is. I mean aren't the grapes grown right on the water?

Matt Wolfe 2:21

Yeah, in most cases. One of the things we talk about holistically about wine globally is, what elevation are the vineyards at? You know, like "Wow, it's so cool. The plateau over Ribera del Duero is at 900 meters above sea level. Does it feel like it? Blah, blah, blah." "We're on top of Teide in Tenerife, we're like touching the moon," and then in Salnés, it's like, "We are at one foot above sea level." So I think generally it's this mystical place for people to experience. And I mean, historically, people know about it globally because of Santiago de Compostela and the pilgrimage finale there, the end point. But that's for a much different purpose than agriculture and viticulture.

Harmon Skurnik 3:09

But that proximity to the sea kind of lends itself to the salinity and the minerality of that wine, doesn't it?

Max Working 3:16

No doubt. I think that the style of wine that today's, let's say, more informed drinker is looking for—oftentimes lower alcohol, a little more acid-driven—the coasts, of course, are a good place to seek this out. They obviously can be a little bit more insulated from the effects of climate change, so absolutely.

Harmon Skurnik 3:38

It's funny you mentioned elevation before, but if we talk about Galicia and elevation, we might be directed towards the red side of the equation, which is the Mencía grape and Ribeira Sacra and Bierzo. You visited there as well, right?

Max Working 3:53

Yeah, it's a good point that, even within this one small corner of Spain, you've got zero altitude seacoast up to snow-capped mountains. And that's what we saw in Ribeira Sacra, in interior Galicia. It's funny, the first time I was telling Matt this, when we were in the car, driving from Ourense to A Pobra de Trives in the middle of one gloomy night, and the fog turns to sleet, turns to snow, and we're swerving off the road to avoid hitting some "jabalíes," which was actually a first for me on the the roads of Spain, wild boar strike, almost. And it occurred to me like, Oh, this is the first time I've been to this part of Spain in in winter. You know, it's like there are certain parts of Spain, because of the travel calendar, that we just associate in our minds with the dead of summer, not necessarily for any reason other than a logistical reason, but to be in interior Galicia in Ribeira Sacra that has these infamously death-defying slopes that look like the Mosul or Côte-Rôtie.

Harmon Skurnik 5:03

The roads themselves are kind of death-defying, with ice and snow.

Max Working 5:05

They certainly can be. But to see that in a context of frost-covered trees and the snow-capped mountains in the distance where there's literally a ski... uh, well, in Spanish they call it a "ski station." I don't know what the English term is. Do we have ski stations? I don't ski. Ski resort? I feel like resort is the wrong word, but I don't know. Yeah. "Estación de esquí." I don't know.

Matt Wolfe 5:29

A place where you ski.

Max Working 5:30

Thank you.

Harmon Skurnik 5:32

So since we're talking about Ribeira Sacra, do we want to talk a little bit about your visits? Dominio do Bibei is there.

Max Working 5:38

Yeah, I want to hear Matt's take on Bibei.

Matt Wolfe 5:41

Bibei is great. I think it's one of those "if you know, you know" wines or wineries, I suppose, tucked up in the Quiroga-Bibei subzone, and is this magnificently popular winery within Spain.

Harmon Skurnik 5:58

It's popular in the Skurnik household as well, I'll tell you that.

Matt Wolfe 6:00

The wines are superb, and there's a long lineage of historic, groundbreaking winemakers that have passed through those doors, namely Sara Pérez, who now operates the Venus la Universal project in Montsant with René Barbier Jr. But we got really lucky that day. The rain stopped and the sun opened up, and we just had this magnificent trip in this incredible area, just really making our calves work, walking through these very old vineyards clinging to the hillside, and then finally driving to the top of the hill and discovering this very brutalist design of a winery that is dug into the hill in five nuanced levels, so that the winery can completely operate by gravity. And then we had maybe one of the most intimate tastings we've had in a long time in the basement of the winery in a room with 30-foot ceilings and dark kind of sultry light.

Max Working 7:05

Yeah, I guess again, because of my professional specialty, I don't go to Burgundy every winter to taste out of barrel or whatever. So I often associate, again, like I was saying earlier, of tasting at wineries with other seasons, but to get down into the bowels of the earth in winter to taste both new wines and also bottled wines, it's like this deep, like telluric experience.

Matt Wolfe 7:30

Totally. And in that case, you feel so sunken, right? And then you walk out of the door and you're like, Oh, I'm still on top of a mountain. That was a really, a really special visit.

Harmon Skurnik 7:41

What were your impressions of recent vintages in the Ribeira Sacra/Bierzo area?

Max Working 7:49

Specifically, two of the newest vintages that we'll be releasing, which doesn't sound new to our typical release calendar, but we'll be still seeing more '21s coming out of that region, which are superb. '21 being like a fresh, classic year in a lot of Spain. Then '22s, which is as it was in a lot of Europe, a little hotter and drier, but good producers made perhaps more structured, but albeit fantastic wines. That winery is a bit of an exception because of their long, elaborate regimen, etc. But we could talk definitely more about '24s and '25s from coastal Portugal and also Rias Baixas, where there's a lot of those under our belts that in many cases will be coming out quite soon.

Harmon Skurnik 8:41

Okay, well, why don't we move down to the sea and talk about Rias Baixas?

Max Working 8:44

¡Vamos, alla!

Alvarinho from Anselmo Mendes

Harmon Skurnik 8:45

Who did you visit down there?

Max Working 8:46

Well, so after crossing the border from Portugal, which is funny because when you're in the north of Portugal, you're already in Alvarinho land. So already, even before you get to the Minho River, which is the border there, you kind of feel it approaching, almost.

Harmon Skurnik 9:05

A lot of people don't understand that Albariño is in Spain. Alvarinho is pretty much the same grape variety in Portugal, right?

Loureiro from Aphros

Biodynamic Albariño from Albamar

Max Working 9:12

Yeah, I mean, to be honest, I'm not academically versed in the state of studies of clones and genetic diversity, but I think that it's accurate to say there's still debate about the origin, but that it probably came from the Salnés valley of Rias Baixas, in what is now Spain. So, before we go to Spain, though, on the subject of Alvarinho, the Portuguese version of the grape, this is not something that we can ever have a conversation about without talking about Anselmo Mendes, the great producer of that grape from the north of Portugal. Somewhat infamously, his nickname over the years has even become Senhor Alvarinho, Mr. Alvarinho. So he's got, in the Monção e Melgaço area in the far north of Portugal, this spectacular estate vineyard of contiguous 50 hectares of Alvarinho, and the very, very choicest parcels from this amazing property are going to be cuvées like Expressões, and most recently something that we've only just been able to start bringing into the USA, a wine called A Torre, first ever commercial release, 2019 vintage. And it's so just simply a stunning wine, one of the greatest expressions of this grape from any producer of any country. So that was really something to behold from a guy who, really since the late '90s, has been nearly synonymous with top quality Alvarinho in Portugal. But Alvarino, even in the context of the far north of Portugal, Alvarinho is not the only thing in white grapes because you've also got Loureiro, which is not nearly as well known, but it's becoming, I think, a little bit better known. But this is a little south of the border between Spain and Portugal, you know, maybe 30 minutes driving. You're going out of the Minho River Valley and down into the Lima River Valley. And even in that short drive, the cultivation just flips entirely over from this one grape to this other grape. And so that river valley, the Lima, is the home of our great friend Vasco Croft of Aphros. What more can be said about this estate that was the first ever certified biodynamic wine producer in the country of Portugal, still only one of four to this day, including our friends Filipa Pato and William Wouters, who are one of the other four. It's funny because sometimes you just have no idea what novelty you're gonna uncover at his address. And this time around, what it was is that— So, Aphros for years now, they've had a subset of their wines, the Phaunus label, which they use for some of their very most lo-fi, let's call them and medievally-inspired, minimal input creations, including several wines which are made without electricity. And it says it right on the label. For a couple of those wines, for years they've been running literally a hand crank manual crusher destemmer that's one of the most beautiful pieces of winery equipment that I can think of among any of my producers. It was actually made in the Azores many, many years ago, and he picked it up somewhere. The novelty this time around was this beloved, old hand crank crusher destemmer, they hooked it up to a bicycle. And it's funny because it's like their cellerhands are, like, rejoicing because instead of hand cranking this thing in shifts for hours and hours and hours and hours to destem and crush the Loureiro grapes that are going into the Phaunus skin contact and for a Loureiro, they're able to rip through it in half the time using their legs instead of their arms, they still have to do it in shifts. But with many producers, we talk about returning to the past to move forward, and it's just funny because you're like, Well, there's the big innovation, is they hooked up the manual destemmer to a bicycle. So that was pretty amusing. So then you cross over into Spain proper and you start crossing through the so-called rias of Rias Baixas, and rias, people often ask what it means literally, and I would almost describe it as, imagine a fjord, but transposed into Spain instead of Scandinavia, and maybe a little lower to the ground, like not so cliff-like and high. But back to your question, we visited Manuel Moldes, affectionately nicknamed Chicho of Bodegas Fulcro. And then later, always on these trips, it's like things sometimes can go sideways for a few days in terms of changing plans and moving around and who's in town and who's late in blah, blah, blah. But after going into the interior and hightailing it back, we caught um Xurxo Alba of Albamar. So two fantastic growers there.

Harmon Skurnik 14:15

Most of the growers in the Skurnik portfolio I have had the pleasure of visiting, but I have not yet gotten to Albamar. What makes Albamar special? Because those wines are incredible. I mean, every single one of them is outstanding, and I'm just curious, what makes that winery so special?

Matt Wolfe 14:32

Like many of the great growers in Galicia in general, Xurxo's from the area, his family's from the area. He has his roots there and loves it. I think that was another thing that was interesting in a lot of the conversations with him is, when he was showing us his vineyards, many of which he's purchasing fruit from because of the amount of money that farmers can charge for Albariño nowadays. But he's just so giddy and happy and excited, and he's just like a kid in a sandbox that's really, really infectious. And I think he has a very specific mental idea of what the new generation of farming looks like in Rias Baixas and in Salnés. And I think, most uniquely, he brought us right to the coast, right next to the vineyards that are planted for one of our favorite wines, Alma de Mar. And he had planted new vines that he's working completely biodynamically with, total natural regeneration, and that is, like, completely unheard of in this area that is—

Max Working 15:42

Very few producers can do it. And some of those, if they're fully committed to it, they end up losing harvests.

Harmon Skurnik 15:50

Is that because the climate is not so conducive?

Bodegas Fulcro

Max Working 15:54

It's because of mildew pressure, because of how wet it is, yeah. You know, the balance of the grapes, in a good year is fantastic, but you just have to pass through this gamut of threat of that. But it's funny because Xurxo, in one of these newer parcels that he's working in this way, was telling a funny story about some bureaucrats who were passing by, on the carretera at the side of the vineyard, during a time when they were doing bio treatments and the agents, or whatever they were, saw out of the car window that they were treating without, like, a World War I, trench style mask on, which is what you need to wear when you're treating with regular chemicals. And so these people stop the car, they jump out and they run into the vineyard, and they're basically about to like arrest them, more or less, for sending people into the vineyards to treat unprotected. And they're like, "Guys, you got the wrong idea. This is a horsetail solution." And there was this standoff, and according to Xurxo, one of the vineyard guys literally had to uncork the tank off his back and took a swig out of it in front of these guys to prove that it's okay, and they eventually were like Okay, and drove off. So, that's the reality of farming in a, still marginal even in global warming, area. And this comes up for us a lot because, I don't know about you, Matt, but I feel like it's not infrequent that we will get requests like, "I need an Alvarinho for you know, whatever price, name a very low price, and it's like, it's gotta be organic," and you're just kind of like, a lot of people don't know the reality, the economic and climatic reality of, if you want organically-grown Alvarino, for example, from this area, it's rare and it's expensive, you know what I mean?

Matt Wolfe 17:41

Just one other point that I think both Chicho and Xurxo do is very, very site-specific wines, which again, is generally unique in this area. And it's really fascinating to look and drive through all these vineyards, and he's like, "I have two rows over there, and I have four rows over there, and I have five rows over there, and this..." and you kind of get this microfundio—

Max Working 18:07

The mini fundismo of Galicia is crazy. You talk about small parcels and landholdings being divided up into very small individual pieces of ownership, and that exists in a lot of places, but the degree to which it exists in the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula is like nothing else.

Matt Wolfe 18:27

You're looking at it, he's like, "Yeah, I use this for the entry-level wine, and this goes into this," and then he's like, "and those two rows of vines?" Chicho would be like, "Yeah, that's Nas Dunas.

Harmon Skurnik 18:37

And he makes like 50 cases of it or?

Max Working 18:39

About one barrel, one 350-liter barrel. But yeah, all of the best producers there, and Chicho from Fulcro that Matt's talking about is another one of them, all the best producers are going more and more into more geographically specific bottlings.

Harmon Skurnik 18:55

Let's talk about Bodegas Fulcro, which is relatively new to the portfolio. And from what I understand, Manuel's mentors, or people that he's respected and learned from, is Raúl Pérez and Rodri Méndez. Is that accurate?

Max Working 19:11

Yeah, definitely those two. And there's more too, like José Luis Mateo from Quinta da Muradella is another one of his old wine buddies. But if you had to pick one, it would probably be Rodrigo Méndez, who is a great friend of ours. He's also local to the Salnés Valley of Rias Baixas. It's this very small, close-knit community where everybody knows everybody. So Chicho, Manuel, was a kid whose father started making a little wine at home in the late '80s and registered a bodega with the DO, and it had no commercial aspirations or anything like that. He was in construction, his father. And in fact, that was how Manuel got one of his most prized vineyards for his wine called Nas Dunas, "on the Dunes." His father built a house for a guy on the beach, and the guy had a couple rows on his property, rooted in basically pure quartz sand. But, anyways, yeah, so Rodri, who is really a godfather to a lot of people in Rias Baixas, definitely took Chicho under his wing to a certain extent. And I think a lot of the stylistic elements that mark the Alvarinho of people like Rodri, or also Raúl, for example— I mean Raúl really was the original pioneer of some of these stylistic things back in the early 2000s, things like harvesting a little bit riper, not overripe, but not marginally ripe, not green grapes, like fully ripe grapes, neutral oak, or even oak of any kind, and blocking malolactic. These were things that, 20 years ago, literally didn't exist. And for a lot of the best new producers, these are all now fairly more and more common tactics.

Harmon Skurnik 21:03

In a sense, isn't it kind of a return to tradition, though? Because prior to stainless steel, there was oak barrels.

Matt Wolfe 21:09

Yeah. Chestnut.

Max Working 21:11

Yeah, true. Not just oak. That's a good point. You know, the chestnut tree is this almost totemic tree in the northwest. We were seeing this a lot and and hearing about this. One of the things, if you're in this part of Europe, that strikes you if you've never been there before, is, there's eucalyptus trees everywhere, right? And you're kind of like, what the hell is going on here? They were imported. You were researching it.

Matt Wolfe 21:37

We ChatGPT'd it and yeah, long ago they took over.

Raúl Pérez

Max Working 21:42

200 years ago? So that clearly came from outside and is considered basically invasive nowadays. But another thing that is strongly associated with there is the pine trees, which you also see tons of pine trees. And I didn't know this before, but apparently that also came from elsewhere and has blocked out a lot of the more "native vegetation," of which chestnut is one. So, not to drop down a chestnut rabbit hole, but it's this like, this is the fascinating thing about wine culture, right? But Dominio do Bibei, to return to Ribeira Sacra, they were encircled this year right before harvest, nearly 360º by wildfires. You may have read about these terrible wildfires that raged through Galicia this summer. And why weren't they touched in Bibei? Because ringing their estate, you have fire breaks where the pine switches over into the native chestnut vegetation and they burn slower. Anyways, where were we?

Harmon Skurnik 22:42

We were in Spain, but should we head to Portugal? Or do we have more to talk about in Spain right now?

Max Working 22:47

I mean, we could go on and on about the abundance of shellfish and the '25 vintage of Alvarinho, which, Xurxo Alba, he said it could prove to be historic in both quantity and quality. But maybe in the interest of time, we could pop back down across the border to Portugal. On our way back down to Portugal, we did manage to get our shoes muddy in the vineyard that Raúl sources his great Atalier Albariño from. An amazing parcel that, all in, it's probably about one hectare, I would guess. The planting age is not known. Most of Spain, they don't have planting records of dates. It's a sad fact, so it's a lot of guesswork. But this parcel is is known to be pre-phyloxera. And I think, Matt, I think that was your first time in it.

Matt Wolfe 23:40

It was huge. I mean, these were big, big, big vines, and it was funny because I was excited to get in there and snap some photos and do this. And and Max is like, "Whoa whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on. We don't know like what dogs are on the property, we don't know who is here." This isn't like rural Pennsylvania, where you can just be like, "Hey farmer."

Harmon Skurnik 24:01

There are some Albariño vines that are like, +200-years-old, aren't there? I mean, how old are these vines?

Max Working 24:08

Again, they're assumed to be probably the oldest vines on the on the site, maybe 1860s, '70s. It's but that's guesswork. And not just Albariño, but Caíño, red grapes also. So, a lot of places that you walk around in Rias Baixas, vineyards verge from the wine vineyard into more ornamental, and there's a lot of that in the area.

Harmon Skurnik 24:36

He makes a small amount of red from that region.

Max Working 24:40

Basically from this, kind of what I'm describing. It looks ornamental if you're looking at it. It's off to the side, just a single vine that the canopy, I mean, is maybe three, four times the size of this ceiling of this small room, but the trunk itself, it's a barrel of wine that maybe—

Harmon Skurnik 25:02

From basically one vine?

Max Working 25:03

Maybe about half of the barrel, let's say. I can't claim it's a single vine wine. One of my colleagues recently, I forget who, was telling us about a single vine wine.

Matt Wolfe 25:12

Stolpman.

Max Working 25:13

Was it? Oh, it's a Stolpman thing. Gosh.

Matt Wolfe 25:15

From the old Klopp trellis system, right?

Max Working 25:17

So anyway, the '24 Albariño from this parcel we're talking about is releasing quite soon from the winery. So we'll be seeing that in just a couple months, and we're finishing the '23 vintage now. And then, it would be difficult to talk about Raúl right now without talking about his push into ever higher altitudes in Bierzo, in his home region, which is much further inland, and in fact, technically not even in Galicia; it's across the border into León, Castilla y León, where one of his newest projects, Viariz, constitutes literally the highest altitude vineyards in the entire Bierzo Appellation, that top out at over 1,000 meters of altitude. You know, we talk about altitude in wine, well, at least in Western Europe, let's say, leaving aside the Andes and South America, which is a whole different thing. You talk about, 500 meters is considered pretty high altitude, you know, 600 high, 700, 800, this is getting into eye-watering altitudes, and you know, a thousand is higher than most of the Alps. And most people probably are not even aware that something like this existed in Bierzo with Mencía, but it does.

Harmon Skurnik 26:34

Most winemakers wouldn't even dare plant at that altitude; they think it's too high.

Max Working 26:39

The thing is that these vineyards were planted a hundred years ago, so that's a whole different— whether or not the winemakers and growers of today would plant is almost immaterial because they're planted as so much of Bierzo was a hundred or more years ago. So that's a fait accompli. But in terms of whether the winemakers want to work with it, great question. And in fact, these vineyards, Raúl got them from Ricardo Palacios, Ricardo and Álvaro, his uncle.

Harmon Skurnik 27:07

And Raúl took on the challenge, and I think he succeeded, hasn't he?

Max Working 27:11

Starting in 2019 is when they started really being able to produce juice from there. And then once the 2020 and especially the '21s, which was a vintage when all the stars aligned in terms of the weather and the the grapes—

Harmon Skurnik 27:28

Somebody gave that one a hundred points. Who was that?

Max Working 27:31

I think Luís Gutiérrez, the Spain critic for Wine Advocate. That's something that has an outsized importance in Raúl's current universe

Harmon Skurnik 27:42

Are the yields on those wines just incredibly tiny? Because the wines are super expensive.

Max Working 27:48

I mean, I couldn't quote you a hectoliter per hectare yield, but suffice it to say it's extremely low. But mostly it's a factor of, to work by animal traction, 40% grade vineyards that are 45 minutes away from anything else, on slate, at a thousand meters of altitude is not cheap.

Matt Wolfe 28:11

We talked about the windy roads of Ribeira Sacra and how harrowing they can be, but after a lunch of three steaks and seven bottles of wine, when we visited Raúl last year, he put us into his small little white truck and put the pedal to the floor so that we could get to Viariz before the sun went down. And that was inspiring and horrifying.

Harmon Skurnik 28:38

I'll bet.

Matt Wolfe 28:38

But I mean you're just zooming on these tiny little roads up to over a thousand meters above sea level. It's a special thing to behold.

Harmon Skurnik 28:48

Before we move on to Portugal, can we just get like a quick primer, because Raúl makes so many different wines, right? So what is the basic difference between, let's say, the Raúl Perez label versus like Viscaína, Castro Candaz, etc.

Matt Wolfe 29:06

Take it away, Max.

Max Working 29:07

At risk of oversimplification, let's say that Raúl's principal project, which is called Bodegas y Viñedos Raúl Pérez, is a project that is marked most notably by a labeling element that says Ultreia. Ultreia, by the way, is the traditional greeting of pilgrims to each other on the Camino de Santiago, which I think many Americans are aware of this now, which is cool because it's gaining traction for Americans. But if you don't know, the Camino de Santiago is an ancient pilgrimage trail that leads to the northwest corner of Spain. It was super important in the Middle Ages and it passes right through Raúl's—not just his region, but his home village.

Harmon Skurnik 29:53

I mean, people walk hundreds of miles on that.

Filipa Pato and William Wouters

Max Working 29:56

Yeah, nowadays the most common one is to walk from basically the Pyrenees to Santiago, which is near Fisterra. But, anyways, you imagine that this popular cultural trail passes directly through a village of about 50 people, that's an important cultural fact, right? So that's why Raúl labels a lot of his wines Ultreia. It's a reference to the Camino de Santiago, and you have a couple village wines, white and red, Godello and St. Jaques, the Mencía blend. And then you also have a number of much, much smaller production: a barrel, a couple barrels, single parcel wines, Ultreia wines. Then you have some wines called La Vizcaína, and the reason that they have a different label is because they're made in an old ramshackle, let's say, bodega in the village of Valtuille, that historically was called La Vizcaína. That's what the building was called, and the wines are raised there, so that's technically why they say that label on them, because they come from that bodega. What they are is also single parcel wines, but like not tiny, tiny production. Medium level of production and price from single lieu dit, you could call them. That's the Vizcaína. Then you get into Ribeira Sacra in Galicia proper. We talked about him collaborating with his great friend Rodri Mendez earlier, and Castro Candaz is a project they have together in Ribeira Sacra for mostly Mencía dominant reds, of course, and then a fantastic white as well. I mean, talk about rabbit holes, we could keep going down the rabbit hole in terms of other news with Raúl like his acquisition of about 20 hectares of head-trained dry farmed hundred-year-old Garnacha vines in Navarra at the Domain's Lupier property, which was already renowned in Spain, but the owners put it up for sale in 2021, 2022, and Raúl and a partner were able to buy it for the beautiful old Garnacha vines. There's others, but...

Harmon Skurnik 32:09

Let's move to Portugal, and let's start with our really good friends and incredible hosts, Filipa Pato and William Wouters, a winemaking and chef couple who are incredibly hospitable when you do go to visit them. He's an amazing chef. It's like going to a two-star Michelin restaurant to have dinner with them, and then of course the wines are spectacular. Did you know that Skurnik used to work with Filipa's dad back in the '90s, and there was a kind of a cult following. Luís Pato, he's a pretty famous producer.

Matt Wolfe 32:42

And contextually, I think it's important to note the different style of wines that Filipa and William produce compared to Luís's wines. You know, if we want to roll into an Old World stereotype, his wines I think follow kind of a Bordelaise direction whereas Filipa and William's wines are slightly more delicate. They almost feel like the Alto Piemonte of the old days to me. But again, to put it into real perspective, these are like true hospitalitarians that not only care deeply about their story and the people that they share it with and how they share it with them, but also the vineyards that they work and how they take care of them. Incredible biodiversity in all the vineyards, incredible animal work in all the vineyards that is supported by sheep that help keep ground cover low, and pigs that help maneuver and aerate the ground, and these really inspiring vistas when you're driving through the vineyards of Bairrada, and you kind of see the parcels off in the distance, and you can tell Filipa's and William's parcels because they're bright green, and there's some gray ones and some brown ones, and then she's like, "That's ours." We're like, "Yeah, we can we can tell."

Harmon Skurnik 33:58

You can tell because of their farming, you can tell that their vines look different than the neighbors.

Matt Wolfe 34:03

Yeah, they're very purposeful about every single thing they do. And another testament to just who they are as people is, we arrived to kind of a new, I don't know, effectively it was a storage facility that they're kind of renovating amongst some of their parcels. And one of their friends showed up who happens to be one of the most important distributors of coastal seafood and shellfish and...

Max Working 34:31

And grower of oysters, yeah. Oyster grower, shellfish distributor. These are the friends that they roll with, thankfully.

Matt Wolfe 34:37

Hugo! He showed up with about three dozen Portuguese oysters, and we had some wine.

Harmon Skurnik 34:44

Luckily, Filipa makes a nice sparkling wine to have with that.

Joining the Confraria dos Enófilos da Bairrada

Matt Wolfe 34:47

Yeah, it was really, really special, and they're just great people, and probably one of the greatest honors, not only of the trip, but of our of our life, was later that evening when Max and I were inducted into a very special group of people. La Confraria da Bairrada.

Max Working 35:02

We have to thank our friends Filipa and William for basically standing godfather to us on this, because you know that if not for them, we would not have been hooked up.

Harmon Skurnik 35:12

Tell us about this. I see this tasteavin around your neck here.

Max Working 35:15

Yeah, so I think this is not all that uncommon in very old, traditional wine regions that you have these sort of cultural groups that develop around the appreciation of the wines, and, you know, in Burgundy, there's the the Confrérie des Chevaliers of the Tastevin. So it's like that, but in Bairrada, in central Portugal. So most Americans, of course, would never have heard of this, and you know, we hadn't heard of it either until then, to be honest. Filipa and William were like, "Funniest thing: the very day that we have fixed for this, that evening is the induction of this year into the Cofraria dos Enófilos da Bairrada. Do you guys want to do it?" And we were like, "Um, yeah!"

Harmon Skurnik 35:59

You mean they nominated you like on the spot?

Max Working 36:01

No, like in advance, but like, we had to submit our CVs and they had to vet us. So if anyone has ever been traveling in central Portugal there, and there's a famous hotel in the mountains, kind of right in between Dão and Bairrada, the Buçaco Hotel. I remember I first learned of this hotel's existence in one of those old editions of the Jancis Robinson and Hugh Johnson's World Wine Atlas on the Portugal page. I don't know if it's still there, but the photo on the Portugal page was this stunning, Neo-Manueline architecture building that is this hotel, and they make wine there. And for many, many years, you could only get the wines, these Buçaco wines at the hotel restaurant, or buying at the door to go. Nowadays that's changed, and they put a little bit into distribution, like a tiny little bit, but still for the most part, you can more or less only get the wines at the hotel there. Anyway, so, this stunning architectural historical marvel up in the hills there outside of Bairrada is the venue for this induction ceremony, which is, as Matt was saying, is done all in Hogwarts-style black robes, and they're very thick, and the room is filled and it's very hot, and the petitioners that year all come up and a little spiel is given, and then there's a Latin formula that we had to memorize and spit back.

Harmon Skurnik 37:33

Well, it's pretty good timing that you were there that day.

Matt Wolfe 37:35

And it was Max's birthday, or at least that following day.

Max Working 37:39

Yeah, when the clock struck midnight.

Matt Wolfe 37:40

So we got inducted and we had a four-hour dinner, and then we all got on the patio and we sang happy birthday to Max.

Max Working 37:46

And now we have come back to defend Baga.

Matt Wolfe 37:50

Correct.

Max Working 37:50

Because now it's like...

Matt Wolfe 37:53

We must.

Harmon Skurnik 37:54

For those of you who aren't aware, Baga is the main grape from Bairrada.

Alfrocheiro and Encruzado from Revela

Max Working 37:58

It's always been huge in central Portugal and Bairrada, but the thing about Bairrada is that for most of its history, and even still today for many producers, you're talking about a bulk sparkling wine region, which they utilize their clay limestone soils and their temperate climate close to the Atlantic to produce fresh, balanced, tasty, low alcohol sparkling wines. And it was Luís, Filipa's legendary father, who was the one several decades ago who first broke that mold and was like, "We're not gonna do bulk sparkling wine; we're gonna do world-class terroir-driven, some whites still, but largely reds, based on the Baga grape." And that's the work that Filipa and her husband are continuing to such spectacular effect.

Harmon Skurnik 38:45

You mentioned Dão before. Should we move on to Revela wines?

Matt Wolfe 38:51

Yeah, so the morning after our inductee ceremony, we traveled to the granite plateau of Dão to visit our newest Portuguese producer, Mariana Salvador, who makes the wines at Revela. And we were able to view some very old vineyards of Alfrocheiro and Encruzado, and we talked about Jaen, which is the kind of Portuguese synonym for Mencía. And Mariana has been this budding superstar in the world of Portuguese wine, especially over the last year or two, and has spent time as the head winemaker at Textura, which is a fairly celebrated winery in the Dão, makes still wines in Madeira for Barbeito.

Max Working 39:34

Protege of Luís Seabra, also.

Matt Wolfe 39:36

Protege of Luís Seabra, and just a very in-tune, passionate, talented winemaker. And luckily in in 2024, she was able to acquire a generous amount of space to increase her production from, I think we currently work with three wines in which about 1,100 bottles of Alfrochiero were made as her highest quantity. Four or five hundred bottles.

Harmon Skurnik 40:02

That's under 100 cases.

Max Working 40:03

More is coming! Stay tuned.

Matt Wolfe 40:04

Very, very tiny. But now, because of this acquisition of this winery and and a few more old vine vineyards, we're really, really looking forward to sharing the love of not only Mariana, but the quality of the wines in 2026. It's something that we're really looking forward to.

Harmon Skurnik 40:22

Great. What are the wines like? Are they white and red?

Matt Wolfe 40:25

We work with an Alfrochiero, 100% Alfrochiero, which is a unique, almost forgotten variety in the Dão. And she has this very delicate approach with the wine, utilizing carbonic maceration and in a few different iterations and making this fresh, bouncy, energetic expression of central Portuguese red wine that still has some spice and herbaceousness and...

Max Working 40:51

Kind of Cru Beaujolais.

Matt Wolfe 40:52

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's better. And then two white wines. She does a monovarietal Encruzado that feels very Beaune-like, and is just quite sultry and has just the perfect proportion of minerality and salt and dried tropical fruit and these kind of white pepper elements. And then she kicks it up a notch with an old vine white blend across a few different areas of the Dão Plateau, and the wine sees a kiss of new oak, and it's just a testament to her vision and the quality of wines that come out of that area for that price point. They're really, really exciting.

Harmon Skurnik 41:34

Our last stop in Portugal was the historical Port producer, Kopke. I have been to Porto to their old winery there, but I have not been to the vineyards. Tell me about Kopke.

Max Working 41:49

So, like a lot of the historic Port producers, they have a spot in town in Vila Nova de Gaia across the river from Porto, and then the vineyards are all, of course, up into the valley. The parent company of Kopke, the Kopke Group, they own a couple of other port brands, but their vineyard source for Kopke and some of the other Ports is called the Quinta San Luís, a beautiful, north-facing, so the south slope of the Douro River, which is increasingly important nowadays. The Douro is one of these places where we talk a lot about the effects of climate change because it's so hot there in the summer. And it's in northern Portugal. It's not in a Mediterranean part of the country, but just because of the way that there's a sort of mountain, the Serra do Marão, I think, blocks it off from the Atlantic, and just the way that weather gets trapped up in there in the summer, it's so hot. So, the bottom line is, north-facing vineyards, critical. And Carla Tiago, who's the technical director of the group, is just a firecracker, like super winemaker, so dialed-in. No one else in the entire valley has the the wealth of wines stored away that they have, which is really the envy of the rest of the valley. We talked about like Ribeira Sacra earlier, these amazing, steeply-sloped riverbank vineyards, and it's easy to forget almost, for Americans, I think, who are not historically big Port drinkers, compared, for example, to English people who historically have consumed tons of Port. For them, if you ask your average English wine enthusiast, name an amazing riverbank vineyard area, they're gonna think Douro, obviously. Americans maybe aren't thinking that so much. So that's the OG, death-defying slope growing area. And the incredible thing about it is, it's not just a small little stretch of river; it's just kilometers and kilometers and kilometers and kilometers of just insane scale human terraforming over history. And then to go back into town in Gaia to see how many liters, or the the big balseiros, where they're holding wines before they move them into barrel.

Matt Wolfe 44:18

6,000 liters? They're huge.

Max Working 44:19

I mean it's just some colossal old barrels that only a few people in Portugal even know how to take care of these anymore.

Harmon Skurnik 44:26

Kopke is one of the oldest Port houses or the oldest Port house?

Matt Wolfe 44:32

The.

Max Working 44:33

The oldest existing still Port house dating to 1638. Just an amazing wealth of history to poke through.

Harmon Skurnik 44:47

On that note, I think we should wrap. But it was been a really great conversation.

Max Working 44:51

And you've been a great traveling partner.

Matt Wolfe 44:53

It was awesome, man. It was really a blessing. Great conversation. Thanks for your time.

Max Working 44:59

Yeah.

Harmon Skurnik 45:00

Nice chatting. Later. Skrunik Unfiltered is recorded at Skurnik Wines & Spirits headquarters in the Flatiron District of New York City, which is why you might hear some city noises as we go along, like horns honking. If you found the conversation interesting, please consider liking, subscribing, and leaving a review. You can stay up to date on our show and upcoming events by following @skurnikwines on Instagram and visiting our website at skurnik.com