2023 Rafael Palacios As Sortes

Rafael Palacios, brother of famous winemaker Alvaro Palacios from Priorat, started making wine in Valdeorras in 2004. He bought old vineyards with godello grapes from local farmers. All 22.5 hectares of the company are planted with this grape, divided over 26 vineyards. The age of the vines varies from 7 to 91 years old. All the plots are farmed organically. His best plots: Sorte O Soro, Sorte Antiga and Os Canieros are fully biodynamic. The name of the wine As Sortes is Galician for the 'heritage lots'. The Galician inheritance law system is such that each child gets an equal share of a piece of land, in this way the vineyards are of course incredibly fragmented and everyone gets a 'sorte' or inheritance lot. It often happens that a vineyard of 1 ha is divided into 10 different inheritance lots or 'sortes'. The plural As Sortes is therefore many lots together in one wine.

Rafa has its vineyards in Santa Cruz do Bolo, where the soil is different from the rest of Valdeorras. The soil here is entirely granite, with a top texture of coarse sand grains from the eroded granite. The granite here is composed of feldspar, mica and quartz. Especially the quartz, a mineral of crystallized silicon, gives a mineral and salty character to the wines. The pluviometry is high, which gives the soils a very low pH and therefore a very high acidity. All the 'sortes' have the same soils, with only the texture and the size of the grains varying. The altitude varies from 650 to 720 m.

What Rafa attaches great importance to is the selective harvest of each plot, precisely in order not to lose the unique character of the different plots. The grapes are placed on the selection table during the harvest. A cold maceration and the greatest possible protection against oxidation are other techniques that he uses in order not to lose quality. The use of foeders is very important. Rafa selects the oak from northern French forests: the colder the forest, the less aromatic the wood, more neutral and with better oxygenation for the élevage sur lees. The wood is lightly toasted, for many hours with a very low heat so that the pores of the barrique open, but so that it is not marked by smoke or torrefaction aromas. He does less bâtonnage than before, because he notices that the wines lose character and personality by using the yeast cells too much. The As Sortes is fermented in large wooden foeders of 500 litres for a good month, after which the wine is given an élevage of 6 months in the same foeders.

The As Sortes is fresh, clean and complex and it is very different from other white wines from the Valdeorras. In the nose we smell notes of yellow fruit, citrus and herbs accentuated by creamy accents and just a hint of smoke. The taste is medium-bodied with a very good acidity, full and spicy but fresh and smooth at the same time. The aftertaste is somewhat salty and mineral and lingers long in the mouth. The As Sortes is produced in (only) a maximum of 15,000 bottles and is an absolute must for those who are a bit tired of Chardonnay. The wine has a nice drinking window until at least 2030+.