2017 Cume do Avia, Caíño Longo Tinto, Dos Canotos, Ribeiro, Galicia, Spain.
The native grape, Caiño Longo is usually used in blended wines, but is capable of doing lovely solo efforts and this bright low alcohol red wine from the talented group of friends at Cume do Avia from Spain’s Ribeiro D.O. is a fabulous effort with a crisp bright personality, similar to Fleurie (Cru Beaujolais Gamay) with a crunchy mineral freshness and racy red fruits. This winery is a hot ticket right now and they farm and use varietals with local significance, they have small plantings of thirteen different indigenous Galician grapes, all selected from ancient vines in the Ribeiro zone, and they have plans to plant many more, especially the long forgotten ones that they hope to re-discover and add to their collection. Led by Diego Collarte and his brother Álvaro, both grew up in Vigo, the latest city in the region, Cume do Avia is like many young Spanish producers that are school friends that have turned away from glitz of city life to get back to their roots, sometimes lost to 3 or 4 generations and finding their mission in the hard work of remote wine regions and long overlooked old vines using natural/organic farming as well as historic methods in the cellar, as they employ here. The terroir here, which is renown for white whites and close to the border with Portugal, is mainly granite based, but there is a diversity of soils in some of vineyards that Cume do Avia have near the Avia River, and this adds spice and complexity to their wines, with some sand, schist and even slate soils here as well. There is an underlying depth and richness though things are kept in firm check by its vibrant form, it certainly rounds out with food and should be allowed time to fill out, then it will show its best and bring a more joyous experience.
The 2017 Caíño Longo Tinto Dos Canotos fills the glass with a vivid ruby hue and delicate floral perfume as well as crushed red berries that leads to a medium bodied vivacious palate with under 12% alcohol, making for a refreshing and zippy red wine that adds that mineral tone, light spices and herbs gaining strawberry, sour cherry, vine picked briar laced raspberry, tangy red currant and lingering earth, rose petal and cinnamon. The lighter frame opens up texturally with air, but the wine stays quite puckering, tartly detailed and is great with a slight chill, it is strikingly vivid stuff and fun, being like Pinot in its ability to go with many cuisine options. These wines are serious efforts that enjoy your attention, though they have a friendly personality, like this one does and drink in what we call a Glou Glou (or glug glug) style, which is reserved for wines that don’t need much over thinking and are easy to quaff. The wine, coming form hand tended and harvested using biodynamic/holistic practices in the vineyards, and fermented with indigenous yeasts with some whole bunches, then the wines are aged in neutral vessels, some including chestnut casks that were more common in older times. This winery admits it has been a tough journey since they started in 2005 to now, where they have a demand for their wines with some disasters and set backs along the way, but I love this intense and vigorous Caíño Longo Tinto Dos Canotos and I can’t wait to taste more of their efforts, and I hear they had a big step up with their 2018 releases, so that is even more exciting. There is a lot to find joyous in the single varietal bottlings, but I also would not miss the blended efforts, make with Souson, Caiño Longo and Brancellao as well as others.
($42-50 Est.) 91 Points, grapelive