Ladeiras Do Xil Branco Santa Cruz 2022

Branco de Santa Cruz comes from plots scattered around the village of Santa Cruz, in the Val do Bibei, in the south of the Valdeorras appellation in Galicia. The terraced vineyards overlook the río Bibei at 400 to 600 metres above sea level, on steep slopes facing south, west and north-west. The shallow, acidic and poor granite-derived soils give the wine its mineral backbone and freshness.

The bush-trained vines, farmed organically, are harvested by hand into crates. Fermentation is carried out by native yeasts. The wine is then vinified and aged for ten months in barriques and foudres of various sizes, preserving the expression of the local grape varieties while adding a delicately rounded texture.

This wine reveals notes of white flowers, orange blossom, fresh peach, white pear, green apple, lemon zest, kumquat, lemongrass, dry hay, aromatic herbs, honeycomb, wet stone and almond. The palate combines a broad, creamy texture with straight acidity, carried by a saline minerality. The long, slightly bitter finish remains precise and balanced.

The history of wine in Spain is so old that no one really knows who brought the first vines to the region. When the Phoenicians arrived some 3,000 years ago and founded the present-day cities of Cádiz and Jerez, viticulture was well established and Spanish wines were widely traded throughout the Mediterranean and North Africa. You could say that Spain is a wine miracle. After years on the sidelines of the fine wine world, it is now a major player. Investment and ambition in vineyards and wineries are resulting in increasingly rich, complex (often very high in alcohol) and spicy reds that are ever more popular with international consumers. Proud to have more land under vine than any other country, Spain is only just beginning to capitalise on this resource in a consistent way. Spain is an anarchic tangle of regions and sub-regions, just as its landscape is an anarchic tangle of incredibly rugged scenery. A glance at a map reveals the climatic diversity between Spain's many wine regions, from the green, rain-soaked vineyards of Galicia on the northern Atlantic coast to the sun-baked vineyards of the Mediterranean south-east. Spain's saving grace, as far as viticulture is concerned, is the average altitude of its vineyards, over 600 metres. Many Spanish vineyards therefore manage to produce grapes with good colour and acidity simply because night-time temperatures are relatively low and the grapes do not ripen until the end of a sufficiently long growing season. But there is real treasure to be found for those willing to dig, and now that a class of connoisseurs has developed in Spain, all kinds of ambitious investors have done their bit to change the image of Spanish wine. Today, a new generation of winemakers has quietly begun crafting spectacular wines and experimenting with grape varieties that would have been unthinkable until very recently. Wine remains an important commodity and an integral part of Spanish culture.