2020 Albarino de Fefinanes
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Tasting notes
Full bottle 1,285 g. Tasted blind and then tasted again (not blind) several times over several days. Fermented in 225-litre oak barrels with regular bâtonnage for three months. Bottled in April 2021. Golden in colour and honey-swirled cream on the nose. What a nose! It cloud-swings out the glass; fresh sweet mint, ripe golden peaches, clementines, muskmelon. This smells and tastes as if it may have been quite a long time on the lees. Smoke and smoky hay, oat cream and roasted hemp. Fiercely concentrated fruit that tastes as if it might be nectarines tucked into stone wells. A dense grass-and-cheese tangy herbiness that makes me think of Cornish yarg. Little veins of caramel and spiced nuts threading through here and there. A touch of coffee. There is something so powerful and broad and deep and concentrated here that it actually reminds me of a Montrachet. Tremendous tension. This is a serious wine, a long-distance runner. Another wine that stayed the course, tasting just as good 11 days after being opened. (TC)
Critic scores
Average Score
Jancis Robinson MW
Tamlyn Currin, jancisrobinson.com
More reviews and scores
The 2020 1583 Albariño de Fefiñanes fermented in 225-liter oak barrels and had bâtonnage of the lees for three months, but the wine doesn't show oak aromas or flavors and feels quite balanced and fresh in a very good, ripe and powerful but fresh vintage. 15,000 bottles produced. It was bottled in April 2021.
From a widely admired producer who buy from about 60 growers. 100% Albariño. Low-temperature fermentation in stainless steel; ageing in stainless steel until bottling in February 2021. Available early May. Closure: natural cork. TA 6.9 g/l, pH 3.4, RS 3.8 g/l. Definitely superior to most of its peers and already with some breadth and undertow despite its youth. Is it lower-than-average yields that make the difference? This is such a revitalising wine! It would be great both with and witout food and has admirable persistence. Imagine sea-soaked lemons and you get a rough idea of the character but it's far from skinny or austere. (JR)