The Rías Baixas D.O. of Spain - The Albariño Capital of the World

Wine for Normal People

Host Elizabeth Schneider explores the Rías Baixas D.O. in Galicia, Spain, highlighting its unique maritime climate and lush landscape. The e

Key takeaways

• Rías Ba</strong>Baixas is characterized by 'rias' or low estuaries, creating a maritime climate unlike much of Spain.
• Over 50% of winemakers in the region are women due to historical seafaring traditions where men were often at sea.

Main topics

• Rías Baixas Geography
• History of Galician Viticulture

Notable quotes

Rias Baixas means 'low estuaries' in Galician.

Conclusion

A comprehensive guide for enthusiasts to understand the terroir and id

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:07) Welcome to Wine for Normal People, the podcast for people who like wine, but not the snobbery that goes with it. I'm your host, Elizabeth Schneider, author of the Wine for Normal People book and certified wine dork. If you haven't ordered from Grapes the Wine Company yet, what are you waiting for? This is my sponsor. They're a small business and a physical store in White Plains, New York, and they have a great selection and just launched a fantastic user-friendly new website. Daniel and his team ship to 40 states. So wherever you're listening from, there's a good chance he can get you exactly what you want. Go to GrapesTheWineCo.com right now. And when you check out, put WFMP in the special instructions for discount on shipping. More details in the middle of the show. Well, a couple of administrative things. And the first thing is Come Over October is coming up and I am teaching four abbreviated wine classes. If you've never taken a class before and you're interested, they'll mostly be on Wine Wednesdays, except the first one because I'm going to Texas Hill Country to go explore that region. But I will be there on Thursday, the first Thursday in October. for the rest of the Wine Wednesday. So it's on my Instagram and I will be putting a link for registration on my site. Also, I just haven't gotten around to it, but you should register. It will be on YouTube. It's just a little bit easier for us to broadcast that way. But I really thank the Come Over October folks for letting me do this because I think it's really exciting. And hopefully you can grab a couple friends and make it a real Come Over October. Come to one, come to all four, check them out today. Really excited for the partnership and to get people together. in October. That's the whole point. There's that. And I'm just going to say my Halloween decorations are already almost up. For those of you who have been with me a long time, you know, I am obsessed with Halloween. I will be posting pictures. Don't worry. It's going to be even bigger this year. Lots of really, I am so obsessed with Halloween. It's crazy. I want to remind you before we get into Rias Baixas and the beautiful albariños of this area and You know, I really love supporting female winemakers. More than 50 % of the winemakers are female. Enriacis. And I'll explain why, but it is a really, really great feature of this area. I do want to thank the patrons. Again, Patreon slowed down a lot. So if you love the show and you want it to continue, please check it out. Patreon.com slash wine for normal people. And I have a small list, but I need to thank Tammy C, Alex S, Martin F, Jack D. And a very, very special thanks to Fernando, who is, I had announced before my friend Christina, who I knew in college and I have reconnected over wine. It's so exciting. Fernando is her husband. Fernando, like, when are we getting together? I'm coming down to Puerto Rico. We're going to make this happen soon. I can't wait to meet you. Anyway, special shout out. Sorry it took so long. I really apologize. Reminder that the classes are live. Syrah is this week. I have GSM building the GSM blend, which is filling up pretty fast, by the way. The wines of the Loire Valley. There's the food and wine pairing class. So I hope you'll check them out. Winefornormalpeople.com slash classes. And again, you know, why not? In October, you could use that as an opportunity if you don't want to come to the mini classes. For come over October, you can obviously pay and take a class with me. Now let's get to Rias Baixas. Now, this is a really interesting area for so many reasons, historically especially, but also from the fact that this is a very different part of Spain. We are not in Ribera del Duero land or Priorat where it is barren pretty much. And honestly, those grapes are the future for us because they can stand heat and dryness. And those are great, but that is not. the situation in Rias Baixas, where Albariño is the main grape. Now, I'm mentioning a bunch of places. Rias Baixas is the Dio. It's the Denominación de Origen. It is in a part of Spain called Galicia. This is the far northwest corner of Spain, and it is very different because it's green. It's verdant. It's lush. The Atlantic Ocean is in the west. You have the Cantabrian Sea in the north that goes out to the Atlantic Ocean. And this region is connected to the Vinho Verde region in Portugal. It's just separated from a river called the Minho River, which is very important here. Galicia is on the Atlantic coastline. This is a very unique geography. First of all, you have a lot of rivers here that are emptying out into the Atlantic. Those rivers are going to influence a lot of the wine growing here. You also have something that you really don't see anywhere in this part of the world. They're essentially fjords, inlets. They are rias. That's what rias means. So rias, baixas. means low estuaries. They're estuaries where saltwater meets freshwater because there are so many rivers. Vineyards are mainly in the province of Ponta Vedra, which is the main city, and also in the southern portion of the Acaruna province. And al barriño, as I mentioned, and as you know because you've had it before likely, is the main grape. There are other grapes here, but 99 % of the production in Rias Baixas is white wine. It's not a big region. 10,700 acres or 4,330 hectares, but there are more than 22,800 vineyards. These are tiny plots, family-owned vineyards, also family-owned wineries for the most part. There are 5,000 growers that... farm, those 22,800 plots, and just 180 producers. So more growers by many than producers. And as I mentioned, more than 50 % are women winemakers. And I'm going to tell you why later. It has to do with where they're located. Interestingly enough, there's more land under vine in Rias Baixas than there are in all four of the other denominaciones de orígenes or Dios in Galicia combined. Those others don't do a lot of Albariño because they're further inland. They do the red grape Mencía. They do white Godeo and a bunch of other grapes. So that's Riviero, Valoras, Monterey. Ribera Sacra. I've talked about these a few times on the show. Probably should do a refresh on those at some point. But they are excellent wines, just super small. Unlike Albarino, which, look, modern Riaz Paixas is only about 40 years old. And mostly before that, before that 40-year mark, people were making a lot of red wine. But the history here stretches back so far. So let's go into that now. In around 137 BCE, the Romans came. They called the area Galatia because they conquered a Celtic tribe called the Galatii that had settled in this area and had been there 2,500 years before the Romans came in and conquered. We don't know that they did winemaking per se, but like everywhere, Romans started viticulture. in earnest. They knew what they were doing. It was a serious trade. We still use many of the techniques that they employed. We certainly use the land that they scouted. So the Romans started viticulture and trade here. And then we fast forward to the medieval period. So many times when I've talked about Spain, Portugal, southern France, I have mentioned El Camino. Camino de Santiago, which is the way of St. James. And it's become a pop culture phenomenon in many ways. In the medieval period, why the Camino is there, if you're not sure, but you've heard of it before, the remains of Santo Santiago or St. James, the apostle, were found in... Compostela. Santiago means James in Spanish. And this led to an explosion in Compostela. All of a sudden, now there's the remains of an apostle. Okay, so everyone needs to make a pilgrimage here. The Catholic Church built a giant church over the apostle's tomb. They began receiving pilgrims. The pilgrimage walk came from France over the Pyrenees. You had people coming, of course, from Spain, from Portugal. People were descending upon Santiago de Compostela. The churches and the monasteries formed along the Camino that served, obviously, the spiritual needs of people on this pilgrimage, but also food and wine. And wine was the preferred beverage of Spanish monks. who were setting up the monasteries and churches along this route. Mainly, they were Benedictine monks. Now, the Benedictine monks, because this area became so important for the church, they came from Cluny in Burgundy. They were professional winemakers. They knew all about vineyards. They came to supervise the new centers of religion and of viticulture because the monks were here. and it was the Benedictines, specifically the Cistercian monks traveling from Burgundy, there is folklore that says that Albariño was brought to Spain by those monks from Burgundy. And there has never been an iota of proof. And finally, in 2020, the Australians did an analysis on Albariño, and they found that it was a descendant of a wild Spanish grape that was domesticated probably... starting with the Romans. This grape has been in Galicia for a very long time. Now, the monks really, really liked this grape because it was a high quality grape. So as they spread out from Santiago de Compostela to make new monasteries in the region, we see cultivation of grapes in places like Valdo Salnez, the Salnez Valley, O Rosal. We have a lot of documentation about what went on until the 1700s when the Spanish government seized property from the church and sold it to wealthy aristocrats who continued winemaking. Again, that was the big thing. You know, obviously the French Revolution, 1789, things started to change. The church lost a lot of control in Spain, in France, all over the place. Why are more than 50 % of the winemakers in Riaz Baixas women? We're in a country that is not necessarily known for equality for women. Spain is known for machismo, male-dominated culture. But in this area, northwest Spain on the Atlantic Ocean, what did people do for profession? They were a seafaring culture because of the coastline. The men went to sea, even if just for a brief time they were fishing or they went exploring and they went farther afield. And there was no one there to mind the vineyards. or the land and the agriculture, except the women. Women have run the vineyards and other crops in Rias Baixas for centuries upon centuries. And today, that has not changed. Women are at the forefront with new styles, new winemaking techniques. They are educated. They are on the regulatory council. They have a huge voice. So if you are someone who likes to support female winemakers, Riesz Beisza, chances are you're probably going to find a female winemaker making the wine that you love because it's more than 50 % of the producers are women. Modern era. Let's talk about that. 1851, powdery mildew