2023 Zarate, Albariño, Val Do Salnes, Rias Baixas DO, Galicia, Spain.
One of the top Rias Baixas producers and a truly terroir driven wine, made by Bodegas Zárate, a pioneer of high-quality Albariño, this 2023 vintages shining right now with pure regional character at its core, showing green apple, lime, white peach and pithy grapefruit peel, along with salty sea shore essences and steely charm. This crisply focused Albariño is sourced from ancient vines in the Val do Salnés subzone and was fermented with native yeasts, bring out loads of mineral and complexity, with exciting mouth watering acidity and some leesy textural depth and feel beginning to show. I’ve always admired these Bodega Zárate wines, so it came as a shock to see I hadn’t actually published reviews before, maybe because I was just enjoying the wine, without putting too much afterthought in to it at the time, but I’m going to rectify that now obviously. This wine and its natural salinity were perfect for a range of briny sea food appetizer plates, which included raw oysters, fresh Monterey anchovy toast with apple, chilly crisp and dill, as well as anchovies in virgin olive oil. Zárate has long been exceptionally good stuff, in fact, It was in 1953 that Ernesto Zárate initiated the Albariño Festival in Salnés’ in the area’s capital of Cambado, where after winning the top prize for three years in a row, he withdrew his own wines, hoping some other producer would raise the quality bar to his level, and that never happened in his lifetime! I highly recommend this naturally fermented and Sur Lie aged and tank raised Albariño, it joins Nanclares as my go to wines.
Bodegas Zárate beats with a Galician heart and makes a series of soulful Albariño from granitic sandy soils and right on the cool Atlantic coast, not far from the Portuguese border, in Rias Baixas, which became a DO in 1988, though has produced wine since ancient times. Zárate, as their importer Rare Wine Co. says lies in the Val do Salnés, thought to be the birthplace of Albariño, and boasts of perhaps the finest baseline Albariño made, this bottling, which is hard to argue with. The estate’s three single-vineyard versions go even further, and surely each rank among Spain’s most prized white wines, though tough to find or get. The estate, with pergola trained vines, uses no chemical fertilizers or herbicides and utilizes natural “teas” to ward off disease, as Rare Wine Co. notes, and since 1994, they have avoided tilling and continue the more organic and sustainable practices they have always tried to do. Winemaker Eulogio Pomares has also championed a rebirth of the region’s ancient reds too, in more recent times, including varieties like Caiño and Espadeiro that were nearly extinguished by Phylloxera, and I look forward to trying those soon. Records actually show that the Zárate estate is a very old one, founded originally back in 1707, in the now classic Val do Salnés zone, that is formed by the lower reaches of the Umia River, its undulating slopes of Xabre, with its weathered granite based soils, and cool climate. This distinctive terroir has made the Val do Salnés the region’s most coveted zone and home to its most exciting wines, such as this one. This far from basic, but entry level Zárate Albariño, should be on any wine lovers permanent watch list and rotation!
($32 Est.) 93 Points, grapelive