Your Ticket to Spain's Coastal Gems : 🤗Rias Baixas Albarino
Tomorrow marks Albarino Day (Aug 1)🥳, celebrating the white grape that thrives in the Rias Baixas region along Spain's rugged Atlantic coast. Rias Baixas is renowned for producing some of the world's finest Albarino wines, thanks to the cool, maritime climate and granitic, sandy soils perfectly suited to this grape.
The vineyards in Rias Baixas are often trained on high pergolas to expose the grapes to cooling ocean breezes and prevent mildew and rot in the humid conditions. For the past couple years, we've worked with Fulcro, our Albarino specialist producer from Val do Salnes - the coolest, wettest part of Rias Baixas. Fulcro's small winemaking operation is housed in a small garage adjoining the family home.
Fulcro was founded in 2009 by vigneron Manuel "Chicho" Moldes Morana 👨🌾, who focuses on hands-off, terroir-driven winemaking. Chicho's emphasis on old vines, low yields, and minimalist methods yields captivating wines of remarkable purity. Though his annual production is just 30,000 bottles, Chicho is undoubtedly one of the most notable producers in the Rias Baixas. His winemaking avoids pesticides and herbicides, with the wines bottled by site according to soil composition. Fulcro's Albarinos do not undergo malolactic fermentation, as Chicho aims for more structure and acidity to produce wines for medium-term consumption. However, the wines are aged for longer than the usual 5-6 months before bottling and left in contact with lees for an extended period.
This approach, including the use of used oak barrels in the aging process instead of steel tanks only, helps craft Fulcro’s Albarinos with a fuller body and more complexity, distinguishing them from many other Rias Baixas expressions. These resulting wines are exceptionally fresh and aromatic, with bright acidity, citrus and stone fruit flavors, and pronounced minerality - offering greater intensity, complexity, and textural depth compared to their Rias Baixas counterparts.
Albarino is incredibly food-friendly, with its fresh acidity and low alcohol, making it perfect for enjoying on its own or sharing with friends at meals. With limited annual production, Fulcro's Albarinos are a true treat for any wine lover.
SPECIAL OFFER:
ENJOY 15% OFF DISCOUNT ON ALL wines by Fulcro
Promotion period: until Aug 14, 2024
1/ Fulcro A Pedreira 2020 - Bt | RP93
(15% Off) HK$170 ▷ HK$145
This is the flagship wine from the range with the biggest production. The wine comes from grapes blended from three nearby sites but is dominated by the A Pedreira vineyard (Spanish for “the quarry”). The vines are close to 40 years old with granite soils. This is both suitable for short and medium term drinking. 18,000+ bottles produced annually.
Tasting note
The 2020 A Pedreira comes from different small vineyards and is the basic wine here. There is a change in this vintage: they increased the percentage of wine that matured in barrel, trying to age most of the wine for a few months, rotating between stainless steel and barrel, as they want the polished texture and acidity of the wine oxygenated in barrel. The wine has 13% alcohol, didn't go through malolactic and has kept very good freshness and balance. It's clean and tasty, pure and focused. Very good. Some 20,000 bottles produced.
-93, Luis Gutiérrez, Issue 259 End of February 2022, The Wine Advocate, March 2022
2/ Fulcro A Pedreira 2022 - Bt | RP93
(15% Off) HK$180 ▷ HK$153
This is the flagship wine from the range with the biggest production. The wine comes from grapes blended from three nearby sites but is dominated by the A Pedreira vineyard (Spanish for “the quarry”). The vines are close to 40 years old with granite soils. This is both suitable for short and medium term drinking. 18,000+ bottles produced annually.
Tasting note
They used more oak in the 2022 A Pedreira, maybe around 70%, using 350-, 500- and 700-liter barrels and also foudres. The rest went into stainless steel, where the wine matured until bottling. The year has more ripeness and structure, a little more alcohol, so they decided to use more oak (but without adding the aromatic or flavors from the wood, which makes the wine more robust and structured). At the same time, the acidity is quite integrated, and the wine is very approachable from early on. This is always selected from granite soils. 44,000 bottles. It was bottled in April 2023.
-93, Luis Gutiérrez, The Wine Advocate, November 2023
3/ Fulcro O Equilibrio 2020 - Bt | RP95
(15% Off) HK$220 ▷ HK$187
The majority of the grapes in this cuvee comes from a 45-70 years old vineyard called A Xesteira, 50 metres from an old tin mine with decomposed red slate soils. This is more restrained on release, but more delicate and has the structure and body to age longer. 5,000+ bottles produced annually and the bottle is closed with wax.
Tasting note
2020 was a year of high acidity, but the 2020 O Equilibrio feels really balanced, harmonious and integrated, with the sensation of very polished acidity even if it is higher than in 2019, polished by the time in oak. It has structure and complexity without being too ripe (it's 13% alcohol), and it has the balance and freshness to develop nicely in bottle. 5,300 bottles produced. It was bottled in August 2021.
-95, Luis Gutiérrez, Issue 259 End of February 2022, The Wine Advocate, March 2022
4/ Fulcro A Cesteira 2021 - Bt | RP95+
(15% Off) HK$300 ▷ HK$255
The A Cesteira vineyard consist of slate and clay soils, and the vines are on average 45 years of age. With fuller body this is a wine with complexity and built for the medium term. 2,000+ bottles produced annually and the bottle is closed with wax.
Tasting note
The 2021 A Cesteira comes from north- and west-facing plots from the slate soils in the mountain in the Salnés, where they have the schist zone. From this vintage, they moved to 2,500-liter oak foudre, where the wine is transferred after the fermentation is finished in stainless steel, and the wine matures in the foudres for some 10 months. It has 12.5% alcohol, remarkable acidity and vibrant flavors. The grapes get the morning sun rather than the evening one, and the wine has ripeness but with citrus notes too, quite vertical. It feels cold, subtle, elegant and sharp but also with ripe flavors. The wines do not go through malolactic, and the foudre gives it a more subtle touch. They produced 3,400 bottles. It was bottled in August 2022.
-95+, Luis Gutiérrez, The Wine Advocate, November 2023
5/ Fulcro Nas Dunas 2019 - Bt | RP94
(15% Off) HK$735 ▷ HK$625
This is the most distinctive wine in the range from sandy beach like soil with clay two to three metres down. A finessed and elegant wine with a fuller body. Only 800+ bottles produced annually and closed by wax for medium term ageing.
Tasting note
The 2019 Nas Dunas (the dunes) was produced with grapes from a vineyard planted on very fine sand—like beach sand—in the zone of Arra. This soil tends to produce fine and elegant wine that also has volume. It fermented with natural yeasts in a 700-liter oak barrel where it matured for one year. This is fresher than the 2018, and it has moderate ripeness and integrated acidity. 800 bottles were filled in August 2020.
-94, Luis Gutiérrez, Issue 259 End of February 2022, The Wine Advocate, March 2022
6/ Fulcro Nas Dunas 2020 - Bt | RP95
(15% Off) HK$750 ▷ HK$638
This is the most distinctive wine in the range from sandy beach like soil with clay two to three metres down. A finessed and elegant wine with a fuller body. Only 800+ bottles produced annually and closed by wax for medium term ageing.
Tasting note
The 2020 Nas Dunas comes from vines on sandy soils over clay in the zone of Arra, where the soil retains the water and the plants have always a reservoir of water, even if it's deep down. The juice from pressing the destemmed grapes fermented with indigenous yeasts in a large oak barrel, where the wine later matured for 11 months. It has a more developed nose with some oxidative hints of nuts and dry hay and straw, less varietal and more complex, with elegance and finesse with iodine and balsamic hints. It has moderate alcohol, 12.5%, but full development of aromas and flavors, and it has high acidity but without an acid feeling. This is a different expression of Albariño. 900 bottles were filled from one 700-liter oak barrel. It was bottled in August 2021, and they keep the wine in bottle for a couple of years more.
-95, Luis Gutiérrez, The Wine Advocate, November 2023
Promotion period: until Aug 14, 2024
In stock now, and offered subject to final confirmation and remaining unsold. E. & O. E.
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