Wine of the week
Treixadura and Torrontés are the protagonists in this wine from Ribeiro, one of Europe’s oldest wine regions.
Casal do Canteiro 2023
D.O. Ribeiro
Varieties: Treixadura and Torrontés
ABV: 12.5%
€14.00
To order contact Jonatán Pousada Álvarez. Email: info@casaldocanteiro.com Tel: +34 637 858 471
One of the many great wines I discovered recently at Emoción dos Viños 2024 was Casal do Canteiro, a new project in Castrelo do Miño, located in the heart of one of Europe’s oldest wine regions, referred to down the centuries as Ribadavia or Ribeiro.
A casal is a small mansion, while canteiro means stonemason in the Galician language. The story goes that the dilapidated estate was acquired by a stonemason in a sealed-bid auction. Thankfully, our canteiro set about restoring the mansion, including its fine two-hundred-year-old bodega. The granite arch you see on the front label is a tribute to the man’s diligence and skills in bringing such a lovely building back to life.
For his very first vintage in 2023, the current owner of the estate, Jonatán Pousada Álvarez, enlisted the technical expertise of renowned oenologist Pablo Estévez Meléndez. This was a major coup given that the UEC (Spanish Union of Tasters) has named Pablo as Spain’s best oenologist in the young wine category on at least four occasions.
Just 6000 bottles of Casal do Canteiro were produced in 2024. On the nose it offers an opening salvo of fennel, grapefruit, lime, pear and greengage, which then gives way to some toasty notes from the five months spent on lees. In the mouth it’s medium-bodied and invitingly saline with a lingering finish.
It paired fabulously with baked turbot al pil-pil, the latter being a blend of olive oil, garlic, the collagen-packed juices of the fish and lemon juice, all whisked together to achieve a smooth emulsion. The wine is also a perfect match for Galmesán from Arzúa (A Coruña), a hard cheese matured for 18 months and reminiscent of a Comté on the nose but with the texture of Parmigiano Reggiano.
Jonatán farms six hectares of Treixadura and Torrontés, all planted well over a hundred years ago in a mixture of granite and clay soils in the Miño and Avia valleys. This is a region steeped in Spanish winemaking history, from eighth century royal endowments to a golden age in the late medieval period when they shipped the wines of Ribadavia all over Europe. This, however, was followed by catastrophic decline in the 19th and 20th centuries due to mass emigration and abandonment of vineyards, and so it’s really cockle-warming to see a whole new generation of young wine professionals putting Ribeiro wine back where it belongs, on the tables of the world’s finest restaurants. Viva o viño do Ribeiro!
