2020 Telmo Rodriguez Falcoeira Branco

Type of Wine | White |
---|---|
Country | Spain |
Region | |
Appellation | Valdeorras (Appellation) |
Winery | |
Vintage | 2020 |
Grape | , , |
Content (Alc) | 0.75 ltr (13.5%) |
Drink window | 2023 - 2030 |
In stock
6 items available
Description
The Telmo RodrÃguez Falcoeira Branco is a great white wine from the new vineyards they had planted in the Falcoeira, one of the most famous places in Valdeorras that had been lost. The 2020 Falcoeira Branco was produced with grapes from a 0.45 hectare vine of the lower terraces on granite soils. It is a blend of Godello, Doña Branca, Palomino and other grapes that reached 13.5% alcohol and retained a pH of 3.29 after fermentation and maturation in 225 and 500 liter oak barrels for 10 months. This wine used to contribute to the Branco de Santa Cruz, but always had a distinct personality; and in 2019 Telmo thought this (pass) was good enough to be bottled separately. It has a complex but subtle nose, with very good depth, very structured and with a stronger salty note in the aftertaste. It is elegantly nuanced, classic, more in the style of a Meursault, with granite minerality. Only around 900-1000 bottles of this wine are made
FACT: The wine is in our conditioned Wine Warehouse and if you pick up the wine you will also receive a nice discount. We are almost next to the highway with plenty of parking. Click here for address
Specifications
Type of Wine | White |
---|---|
Country | Spain |
Region | Galicia |
Appellation | Valdeorras (Appellation) |
Winery | Telmo Rodriguez |
Grape | Dona Blanca, Godello, Palomino |
Biological certified | No |
Natural wine | No |
Vegan | No |
Vintage | 2020 |
Drinking as of | 2023 |
Drinking till | 2030 |
Alcohol % | 13.5 |
Alcohol free/low | No |
Content | 0.75 ltr |
Oak aging | Yes |
Sparkling | No |
Dessert wine | No |
Closure | Cork |
Parker rating | 95 |
James Suckling rating | 94 |
Tasting Profiles | Droog, Fris, Fruitig, Mineraal, Strak, Wit fruit |
Drink moments | Borrelen, Cadeau!, Met vrienden, Summer party, Terras, Voor alledag |
Professional Reviews
Parker
The Wine Advocate
RP 95
Reviewed by:
Luis Gutiérrez
Release Price:
$140
Drink Date:
2023 - 2030
This is the second vintage of the single-vineyard white 2020 Falcoeira Branco. It's from a 0.45-hectare vineyard planted with a field blend of red and white varieties: Godello, Doña Branca, Treixadura, Palomino and other grapes that give the wine great complexity. In this warm year, they managed to keep the wine to a moderate 13.5% alcohol and a pH of 3.42 after fermenting and maturing in 225- and 500-liter oak barrels for 10 months. It's a wine of emotion, serious and austere, and there's no fruit; it's like liquid granite, with notes of herbs and a chalky palate. It's a triumph over the challenging conditions of the year. Only 678 bottles from this low-yielding year were filled in July 2022.
Telmo RodrÃguez and his partner Pablo Eguzkiza keep working in different regions, although still quite focused in Galicia, reducing the volumes for entry-level wines and going for more serious wines, moving away from generic varietal bottlings and going more for site-designated wines. I tasted the fine wine portfolio that has just been released, different vintages depending on the place, looking at the very small details of each.
2022 was a very warm year, and the wines from Rueda were saved by some rain in mid-September that slowed the ripening and achieved fresh wines. In Valdeorras, they have discontinued the Gaba do Xil red and replaced the white with a single-vineyard bottling from the O Barreiro lieu-dit, also reducing volumes. Here, they are releasing mostly 2020s, except for the younger white from 2022. They are both warm years with an early harvest that resulted in ripe wines, with the complication of lots of fungal diseases in 2020 that decimated the crop. In Galicia, the organic certification is complex when you have neighbors, so they are still in a transition moment.
In Rioja, the current vintage is also (mostly) 2020, a challenging year with mildew, but they were lucky to escape the hail that didn't hit Lanciego but affected the vineyards in Labastida (Tabuérniga and Beatas were affected). The harvest was earlier than in 2019, but they still started the sixth of October with the terraces of Tabuérniga. Pablo Eguzkiza told me it was a strange year for Tempranillo, when Graciano ripened earlier than Tempranillo.
I tasted the wines from Galicia from Telmo RodrÃguez as part of the whole portfolio tasting a couple of months ago, and the notes were published in a specific article. But now that I have tasted all the relevant wines from the different regions of Galicia, I thought it would make sense to include those notes again here, for completeness of this article and context for the rest of wines from the region, in this case Valdeorras. They have discontinued the Gaba do Xil red and replaced the white with a single-vineyard bottling from the O Barreiro lieu-dit, also reducing volumes. Here, they are releasing mostly 2020s, except for the younger white from 2022. They are both warm years with an early harvest that resulted in ripe wines, with the complication of lots of fungal diseases in 2020 that decimated the crop. In Galicia, the organic certification is complex when you have neighbors, so they are still in a transition moment.
Published: Nov 16, 2023
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James Suckling
COMPAÑIA DE VINOS TELMO RODRIGUEZ VALDEORRAS FALCOEIRA BRANCO 2020
Monday, October 9, 2023
CountrySpain
RegionGalicia
Vintage2020
CHECK PRICE
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Score
94
A white wine that shows depth with minerality. Quite reserved. This is round and textured on the palate, showing transparency and weight with fresh, medium acidity. Full-bodied and not too demanding.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua...
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Wijnhuis
Winemaker Telmo Rodriguez is labeled as one of the young lions of the Spanish wine industry. He studied at the University of Bordeaux and later in the Rhône with the famous August Clape. He was the winemaker of La Granja Senora De Remelluri, his father's bodega in Rioja. He left there to become what some would call a flying winemaker. However, Telmo prefers to call itself a 'driving winemaker'. he lives in Madrid and drives his car to the areas where he makes wine. In a short time his wines have found a place on the international playing field. One example: in Tom Stevenson's Wine Report 2008, Telmo is included among the top 10 producers from Spain. We once again spoke extensively with Telmo Rodriguez. That is always a pleasure. If you sit down with him you always learn something or he gives food for thought. What makes this 'conscience of the Spanish wine world' so special? When Telmo completed his studies in Bordeaux and then had internships with people like Chave (Hermitage), Clape (Cornas) and Dürrbach (Trévallon) he came back to Spain. There he saw other Spaniards who had studied in France bringing French grape varieties and customs to Spain. For example, there was more and more wire guidance, while the Spanish system had always been free-standing sticks. Telmo concluded that he wanted to focus on the old qualities of Spain such as freestanding sticks, indigenous grape varieties and field blends. In addition, he was the first in Spain to introduce modern labels and he opposes the rigid Spanish wine laws.
Free standing sticks
Spain used to be a country of bush vines: the sticks were so far apart per area and per vineyard that they could each get enough water. If you place your sticks far apart with wire articulation, the stick will grow far and become much too large. With wire articulation, you therefore need many more sticks per hectare. However, the problem is that there is not enough water for this and you therefore have to irrigate, in areas that often already suffer from a shortage of water. In addition, the grapes hang more in the shade with free-standing sticks, which gives less chance of 'burning' and leads to less stewed fruit and fresher acids. The only downside to free-standing canes is that more manual work is involved in vineyard management and harvesting. Telmo works almost exclusively with bush vines.
Native grape varieties
It was clear to Telmo that there are so many good indigenous varieties in Spain that importing 'the big five' (Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Merlot, Cabernet and Syrah) from France was not necessary at all. He was one of the first to produce good Rueda from Verdejo and Viura, he embraced Mencia and Godello in Valdeorras, Monastrell in Alicante, Moscatel in Malaga, Garnacha in Cebreros…. In the mid-1990s he was still considered crazy with this philosophy, but now everyone is following him.
Field blends
There used to be many vineyards in Spain with various grape varieties mixed together, also called 'field blends'. It is often argued against field blends that the varieties (that are picked together) are not all ripe at the same time. It speaks for the fact that diversity and disease resistance increase and that it promotes complexity. Telmo now has two vineyards with field blends in production. In Rioja he makes it Las Beatas (named after the vineyard, first vintage awarded with 97 points by Parker) and in Valdeorras Las Caborcas. Beautiful, original wines!
Spanish wine laws
Telmo was the first to remove the word Reserva from a Rioja in 1995. In his words: 'I ask my wines how long they want to stay in the wood'. One year grapes can easily handle a 12-month aging in wood, but not in another year. There was consternation about Las Beatas: the Consecho initially did not want to approve the wine made with a field blend as Rioja… while there was a time when all Rioja was made that way! Consecho did not push this to the extreme and ultimately fortunate for them, given the enormously high international appreciation.
The Telmo RodrÃguez Falcoeira Branco is a great white wine from the new vineyards they had planted in the Falcoeira, one of the most famous places in Valdeorras that had been lost. The 2020 Falcoeira Branco was produced with grapes from a 0.45 hectare vine of the lower terraces on granite soils. It is a blend of Godello, Doña Branca, Palomino and other grapes that reached 13.5% alcohol and retained a pH of 3.29 after fermentation and maturation in 225 and 500 liter oak barrels for 10 months. This wine used to contribute to the Branco de Santa Cruz, but always had a distinct personality; and in 2019 Telmo thought this (pass) was good enough to be bottled separately. It has a complex but subtle nose, with very good depth, very structured and with a stronger salty note in the aftertaste. It is elegantly nuanced, classic, more in the style of a Meursault, with granite minerality. Only around 900-1000 bottles of this wine are made
FACT: The wine is in our conditioned Wine Warehouse and if you pick up the wine you will also receive a nice discount. We are almost next to the highway with plenty of parking. Click here for address
Type of Wine | White |
---|---|
Country | Spain |
Region | Galicia |
Appellation | Valdeorras (Appellation) |
Winery | Telmo Rodriguez |
Grape | Dona Blanca, Godello, Palomino |
Biological certified | No |
Natural wine | No |
Vegan | No |
Vintage | 2020 |
Drinking as of | 2023 |
Drinking till | 2030 |
Alcohol % | 13.5 |
Alcohol free/low | No |
Content | 0.75 ltr |
Oak aging | Yes |
Sparkling | No |
Dessert wine | No |
Closure | Cork |
Parker rating | 95 |
James Suckling rating | 94 |
Tasting Profiles | Droog, Fris, Fruitig, Mineraal, Strak, Wit fruit |
Drink moments | Borrelen, Cadeau!, Met vrienden, Summer party, Terras, Voor alledag |
Parker
The Wine Advocate
RP 95
Reviewed by:
Luis Gutiérrez
Release Price:
$140
Drink Date:
2023 - 2030
This is the second vintage of the single-vineyard white 2020 Falcoeira Branco. It's from a 0.45-hectare vineyard planted with a field blend of red and white varieties: Godello, Doña Branca, Treixadura, Palomino and other grapes that give the wine great complexity. In this warm year, they managed to keep the wine to a moderate 13.5% alcohol and a pH of 3.42 after fermenting and maturing in 225- and 500-liter oak barrels for 10 months. It's a wine of emotion, serious and austere, and there's no fruit; it's like liquid granite, with notes of herbs and a chalky palate. It's a triumph over the challenging conditions of the year. Only 678 bottles from this low-yielding year were filled in July 2022.
Telmo RodrÃguez and his partner Pablo Eguzkiza keep working in different regions, although still quite focused in Galicia, reducing the volumes for entry-level wines and going for more serious wines, moving away from generic varietal bottlings and going more for site-designated wines. I tasted the fine wine portfolio that has just been released, different vintages depending on the place, looking at the very small details of each.
2022 was a very warm year, and the wines from Rueda were saved by some rain in mid-September that slowed the ripening and achieved fresh wines. In Valdeorras, they have discontinued the Gaba do Xil red and replaced the white with a single-vineyard bottling from the O Barreiro lieu-dit, also reducing volumes. Here, they are releasing mostly 2020s, except for the younger white from 2022. They are both warm years with an early harvest that resulted in ripe wines, with the complication of lots of fungal diseases in 2020 that decimated the crop. In Galicia, the organic certification is complex when you have neighbors, so they are still in a transition moment.
In Rioja, the current vintage is also (mostly) 2020, a challenging year with mildew, but they were lucky to escape the hail that didn't hit Lanciego but affected the vineyards in Labastida (Tabuérniga and Beatas were affected). The harvest was earlier than in 2019, but they still started the sixth of October with the terraces of Tabuérniga. Pablo Eguzkiza told me it was a strange year for Tempranillo, when Graciano ripened earlier than Tempranillo.
I tasted the wines from Galicia from Telmo RodrÃguez as part of the whole portfolio tasting a couple of months ago, and the notes were published in a specific article. But now that I have tasted all the relevant wines from the different regions of Galicia, I thought it would make sense to include those notes again here, for completeness of this article and context for the rest of wines from the region, in this case Valdeorras. They have discontinued the Gaba do Xil red and replaced the white with a single-vineyard bottling from the O Barreiro lieu-dit, also reducing volumes. Here, they are releasing mostly 2020s, except for the younger white from 2022. They are both warm years with an early harvest that resulted in ripe wines, with the complication of lots of fungal diseases in 2020 that decimated the crop. In Galicia, the organic certification is complex when you have neighbors, so they are still in a transition moment.
Published: Nov 16, 2023
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua...
James Suckling
COMPAÑIA DE VINOS TELMO RODRIGUEZ VALDEORRAS FALCOEIRA BRANCO 2020
Monday, October 9, 2023
CountrySpain
RegionGalicia
Vintage2020
CHECK PRICE
DOWNLOAD SHELFTALKER
Score
94
A white wine that shows depth with minerality. Quite reserved. This is round and textured on the palate, showing transparency and weight with fresh, medium acidity. Full-bodied and not too demanding.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua...
Exclusive Content
Sign in to unlock professional wine reviews from world-renowned critics
Winemaker Telmo Rodriguez is labeled as one of the young lions of the Spanish wine industry. He studied at the University of Bordeaux and later in the Rhône with the famous August Clape. He was the winemaker of La Granja Senora De Remelluri, his father's bodega in Rioja. He left there to become what some would call a flying winemaker. However, Telmo prefers to call itself a 'driving winemaker'. he lives in Madrid and drives his car to the areas where he makes wine. In a short time his wines have found a place on the international playing field. One example: in Tom Stevenson's Wine Report 2008, Telmo is included among the top 10 producers from Spain. We once again spoke extensively with Telmo Rodriguez. That is always a pleasure. If you sit down with him you always learn something or he gives food for thought. What makes this 'conscience of the Spanish wine world' so special? When Telmo completed his studies in Bordeaux and then had internships with people like Chave (Hermitage), Clape (Cornas) and Dürrbach (Trévallon) he came back to Spain. There he saw other Spaniards who had studied in France bringing French grape varieties and customs to Spain. For example, there was more and more wire guidance, while the Spanish system had always been free-standing sticks. Telmo concluded that he wanted to focus on the old qualities of Spain such as freestanding sticks, indigenous grape varieties and field blends. In addition, he was the first in Spain to introduce modern labels and he opposes the rigid Spanish wine laws.
Free standing sticks
Spain used to be a country of bush vines: the sticks were so far apart per area and per vineyard that they could each get enough water. If you place your sticks far apart with wire articulation, the stick will grow far and become much too large. With wire articulation, you therefore need many more sticks per hectare. However, the problem is that there is not enough water for this and you therefore have to irrigate, in areas that often already suffer from a shortage of water. In addition, the grapes hang more in the shade with free-standing sticks, which gives less chance of 'burning' and leads to less stewed fruit and fresher acids. The only downside to free-standing canes is that more manual work is involved in vineyard management and harvesting. Telmo works almost exclusively with bush vines.
Native grape varieties
It was clear to Telmo that there are so many good indigenous varieties in Spain that importing 'the big five' (Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Merlot, Cabernet and Syrah) from France was not necessary at all. He was one of the first to produce good Rueda from Verdejo and Viura, he embraced Mencia and Godello in Valdeorras, Monastrell in Alicante, Moscatel in Malaga, Garnacha in Cebreros…. In the mid-1990s he was still considered crazy with this philosophy, but now everyone is following him.
Field blends
There used to be many vineyards in Spain with various grape varieties mixed together, also called 'field blends'. It is often argued against field blends that the varieties (that are picked together) are not all ripe at the same time. It speaks for the fact that diversity and disease resistance increase and that it promotes complexity. Telmo now has two vineyards with field blends in production. In Rioja he makes it Las Beatas (named after the vineyard, first vintage awarded with 97 points by Parker) and in Valdeorras Las Caborcas. Beautiful, original wines!
Spanish wine laws
Telmo was the first to remove the word Reserva from a Rioja in 1995. In his words: 'I ask my wines how long they want to stay in the wood'. One year grapes can easily handle a 12-month aging in wood, but not in another year. There was consternation about Las Beatas: the Consecho initially did not want to approve the wine made with a field blend as Rioja… while there was a time when all Rioja was made that way! Consecho did not push this to the extreme and ultimately fortunate for them, given the enormously high international appreciation.