O Poulo 2021 - La Perdida

Many of Nacho's parcels around Larouco lay abandoned before he restored them to health, hidden among bush or mountain trails. These untrellised vines, planted in the early-mid 20th century, tell us much about the fascinating viticultural history of this rugged, dramatic landscape. Nacho began making wine in Larouco, close to his grandmother's home in Seadur, after she gifted him a parcel of vines just outside the village. That was in 2013. Since then, Nacho left his career as a biologist behind, becoming immersed in his winemaking project and his mission to preserve these old vineyards and varieties by showcasing their quality. In the face of encroaching pressures to conform to market demands and the homogenising prescriptions of industrial farming, Nacho has stood firm, an iconoclast of sorts, and persevered in making thrilling, terroir-driven wines, that tell an almost forgotten story of this region's fascinating history. Many of the sites are dramatic and remote, a quality that often finds an uncanny expression in Nacho's wines.

Nacho farms 5 hectares or so in total, mostly old untrellised vines on granite, slate, and clay between 450 and 650 metres. Farming is organic in practice, with some biodynamic and mycological preparations with nettle, horsetail, and comfrey infusions replacing conventional sprays, and fungal preparations are applied to restore soil biology on parcels that had been left to degrade. He has declined organic certification as the scheme permits some chemical use in the vineyards (certification is also costly). Having spent a month working with Nacho during the 2021 harvest, the rich biodiversity among his vines tells it’s own story.

His cellar in Larouco is as lofi as it gets... Gravity carries the juice from the press to a basement where padilla tinajas, old barrels, and stainless tanks are preferred to finish fermentation and age the wines. Everything rests on its lees through winter and is bottled the following spring without fining or filtration. La Perdida means "the lost." Nacho chose the name for the vineyards themselves, most of which had disappeared into the landscape, forgotten to all but the well-trained eye.

Garnacha Tintorera is a teinturier variety, meaning its pulp is red-pigmented rather than just its skins. This was what gave the variety its historical value as a blending tool, adding colour to high-volume wines of the Franco era. It was planted widely across Spain under his regime for exactly that purpose, and has been largely treated as a workhorse grape. In Valdeorras, Nacho's old-vine parcels are among the very few places it is being taken seriously as a variety in its own right. O Poulo takes its name from a Galician word meaning uncultivated or marginal land, which describes this dramatic, exposed site at 650 metres of elevation. The progressive skin removal technique he uses here is distinct from carbonic maceration and from conventional extraction, capturing early aromatic lift and colour without accumulating the tannin that extended whole-berry fermentation would give. The Palomino in this wine grows in the bottom corner of the vineyard, so this is a single-vineyard wine.

Grapes: Garnacha Tintorera, Palomino

Region: Larouco, Valdeorras, Galicia, Spain

ABV: 15%