MIPTC #25 - Paco & Lola Rias Baixas 2021

Well hey there wine friends! Welcome to yet another edition of the #MIPTC newsletter, where we discuss good wines among good people. It's a true pleasure to have you here.

Now, I know most of you are reading this straight from your email inboxes, and that's 100% fine. However, if you could be nice enough to click the link and leave a like or at least a proper LinkedIn "view", it'd help me greatly in getting this newsletter seen by more people - which really is what it's about in the end. 'Appreciate it!

Being the cheerful contrarian I am, I decided to go a bit against the grain for my wine pick this week. While most of us are now deep into robust reds and oaky whites to accompany the colder months, I decided to go another direction completely with a crisp and snappy white. Truth is, I find this wine style actually does great in Winter, and namely by providing a bit of refreshing light-handedness to the heavier fare we tend to eat these days. You should try it!

If you're at all into Spanish wines, odds are you will have tried something from Rias Baixas. Based on the Atlantic coast of Galicia in Northeast Spain with signature cold nights and foggy mornings, this place is home to one of the best expression of one of my favorite white varietals: Albari?o.

(For those wondering, yes - Albari?o is the same as Portugese Alvarinho. They just spell it differently because... you know, they're different languages.)

Now, Albari?o is not your typical winter wine: it is usually paired with fresh Atlantic seafood dishes like ceviche, fish tacos, shrimp pasta... that type of stuff. It is generally loved for its high acidity, zippy lemon and lime flavors, dry profile, and that subtle saltiness it most likely get from all the sea air it breathes into.

If you're looking to expand your horizons a bit, however, I'd recommend trying it with home-made tomato soup and a gourmet grilled cheese sandwich made with Gruyère, Garrotxa, Manchego or even the regular Mozarella-in-a-bar type stuff. That's exactly what I did yesterday and it was a killer match to the lovely snowy night we had here in Montreal.

All right, so let's get tasting, shall we?

The Skinny

• From: Rias Baixas, Galicia, Spain
• Varietals: Albari?o 100%
• Price: $18,50 CAD
• Feature: None

Tasting Notes

On the nose, this is briny from the onset, with that signature saltwater sea air Rias Baixas is known for. Now, this is not truly salty, but it definitely has that note colouring everything else. I happen to love it. At its core, this has bright lemon and granny smith apple written all over it, along with grapefruit and lime. This is definitely a zippy wine meant to bright up the palate, and it leans into this without any attempt at unnecessary complexity.

On the palate, you basically get what the nose announced: a bright and fresh wine that hits the tongue with deep yet not overly sharp acidity. The impressive part is that this still has a lot of texture for a wine this bright. We are therefore not in the saw-your-tongue-in-half-like-a-laser beam kind of stuff either. I mostly get grapefruit and green apple on the palate, though the medium-length finish does carry through some interesting mineral notes like flint, wet rocks, and maybe even graphite. No alcohol burn at a very reasonable 13%, but I don't think this could have done well above that.

Cutting To The Chase: Does It Please The Cork?

I thoroughly enjoyed this, and it is also definitely great value at less than 20$ a pop. I mean, this is (far) from life-changing, but it is a great and typical expression of a lesser-known region and varietal that I can happily recommend as a fine introduction. Is there better wine out there? Absolutely - but one would be hard-pressed not to be satisfied with this cracking one. A great example of a no-fuss bottle one can keep around.

Oh, and these folks are marketing their wines quite heavily as well, so you should be able to find a bottle relatively easily wherever you are.

Cork Score: 3/5*

***

*Here's the lowdown on the scores, by the way. Essentially, I don't believe in 100-point scales for things as subjective as wine. Simply put, I just don't think one can credibly justify a 1% or even a 10% increment between two wines. I therefore choose to go a bit more basic. Here's how I break it down:

• 1/5: Seriously faulty, terrible, undrinkable;
• 2/5: Flawed and/or of bad quality. This is the type of stuff you should probably cook with and not drink;
• 3/5: Decent. This is where most entries will end up. These wines are clean and well-balanced, but not particularly memorable and/or exceptional. They are recommendable, but not an experience per se;
• 4/5: Exceptional. I sadly drink few wines that get this rating, but my purpose is to drink more. This denotes a memorable bottle that brought up some kind of emotion in me. This left a mark, and odds are I am now busy recommending it to everybody I know;
• 5/5: Perfect. I think I have probably tasted less than 5 bottles that would have qualified for a 5/5 in my entire life. This denotes an absolutely incredible wine that will imprint a definite memory for years to come - a true experience in itself.