2017 Frore de Carme (Eladio Piñeiro) Envidiacochina Albariño

This wine has beautiful pear, apple and melon aromatics.  It is a touch herbal, briny and salted with hints of black licorice. Good balanced acidity brings energy to a wine that still remains supple and round. The complex palate shows honeysuckle and mango. There is a weight and intensity to this wine as it warms and as the air opens it deeper. No matter that this impressive white wine doesn’t fit into wine racks, it is ready to enjoy now!

The wines of Eladio Piñeiro are wonderful expressions of hand-crafted style, in concert with time, place and grape. His 30 years’ experience farming and vinifying wine allows him to produce limited bottlings that are as typical of the region as they are uniquely tempered by his philosophy and techniques.

     Albariño is one of the great white wines of Spain, grown in the Rías Baixas region of northwestern Spain since the 12th century. Even with this long history of production, Rías Baixas was only officially recognized with status as a Denominación de Origen (DO) in 1988. Eladio was producing Albariño as early as 1983, as one of the founders of a large scale winery called Bodegas Mar de Frades. Located in the Valley of Salnés of Rías Baixas, he organized the production of a great amount of wine that helped to define the character of the region for the world. While it was a tremendously successful venture, Eladio was not deeply entertained by the commercial nature of the business, which is why, in January 2003, when his wife Carmen fell ill, he happily sold his stake in Mar de Frades. He retained ownership of a few of his favorite vineyards in Rías Baixas and over the next couple years researched and purchased land in the Alentejo of Portugal. As Carmen recovered, Eladio gradually began to find more time to get back to his work with the vines and with wine. Beginning again in 2006, he produced small lots of three wines from the two regions. Farming is with a biodynamic approach and the work in the winery is all done by hand. Eladio is now unconstrained by the commercial market and his recent releases are much more intriguing, artistic and creative and Carmen designs the labels.

 There are two 100% Albariño wines from Rías Baixas: Frore de Carme and Envidiacochina. They both come from 30-year-old vineyards that have been farmed with biodynamics for nearly 10 years. The plots are distributed throughout the Valley de Salnès, some sites are close to the ocean with a marked Atlantic influence while others are further inland surrounded in pine groves and eucalyptus. Hand-harvested Albariño for both wines is crushed and macerates for a few hours before pressing. It undergoes primary and secondary fermentation in stainless steel and spends fourteen months on lees with monthly stirring. After bottling unfined and unfiltered, it is allowed to rest in bottle for many months before release.  We are offering the 2014 Envidiacochina Albariño. Upon completion of primary fermentation, 15% of the previous vintage Frore de Carme is blended in. This is a unique method of bringing complexity and character to wine that is not practiced widely but Eladio deftly uses this to his advantage.