2025 Bodega Garzón, Albariño, Reserva, Uruguay.
The delicious, stony, salty crisp and mineral focused, pale gold/straw hued Bodega Garzón Reserva Albariño from Uruguay bursts from the glass with green apple, peach, minty herbs, cut flowers and grapefruit, all of which repeat on the medium bodied palate, making for an impressive and well crafted effort here. There’s good reason that there has been quite a bit of interest in this varietal in Uruguay by die hard fans of Rias Baixas Albariño, this is zesty pure stuff that proves this small South American country, most known for the tannic and rustic red wines made from Tannat, the French Basque grape. The Galicians have embraced this terroir and have held symposiums here to celebrate Albariño in the new world and Garzón certainly have done a lot to elevate Uruguay, especially with this Reserva bottling. This 2025 version saw fermentation in a combination of stainless steel and cement tanks, after a cold settling, then after primary fermentation was complete the juice was racked over to tank to age without malo-lactic. The Albariño Reserva matured just 3 to 6 months on the lees in stainless steel tanks, giving just the right amount of texture, while retaining lots of vibrant energy. This 100% Albariño, comes in pretty ripe at 13% natural alcohol, but acidity and green brightness make this tasty white plenty zesty and great with fresh sea food dishes. As someone, involved in a minor way, with the rise of new world Albariño in California’s Monterey area, I highly recommend checking out Garzón’s fine example!
Bodega Garzón has led the way for Albariño in Uruguay, as this latest release shows with some authentic varietal charms, but it also does some other interesting wines, including a unique offering of Marselan, a rare grape that was a crossing of Cabernet Sauvignon and Grenache, found almost exclusively in the South of France and a few places along Italy’s Mediterranean coast. They also do some Bordeaux inspired Merlot and Cabernet Franc, as well as a single vineyard Albariño, which now has me intrigued and wanting to find as soon as possible. Garzón’s vines are close to the Uruguayan Atlantic coast and 160 meters above sea level, and the winery says, the vines were planted in a native land imprinting a unique, inimitable personality on their grapes which, along with a temperate weather and the organic practices make for wines clearly marked by place. The ancient rocky terroir here, as the winery notes, has a geology in the Garzón area that belongs to what is known as (the) Crystalline Basement, which gave origin to the oldest soils in the planet over 2500 million years ago, made of calcareous shale and limestone. This is a completely unique set of soils that gives Albariño, which is a transparent varietal, like Pinot Noir, a very distinctive personality, both stony and expressive, again as seen here in this wine. Like Galicia and the Rias Baixas, the wines here are under the strong influence of the Atlantic Ocean, which is only 18 km away, bringing cool breezes to retain freshness and add to the overall vine health.
($25 Est.) 92 Points, grapelive