Wine of the week
Adrian McManus draws our attention to an Atlantic red wine from Ribeiro in north-east Spain.
El Tinto de Candela y Valentina 2024, Casal Do Canteiro
DO Ribeiro
ABV: 14.5%
Varieties: Mencía, Caíño, Brancellao and Garnacha Tintorera
€10.00 from Casal do Canteiro
Email: info@casaldocanteiro.com
Tel: +34 637 85 84 71
Casal do Canteiro blanco featured at the Spanish Wine Collective nearly a year ago after I met Jonathan and Fatima at Emoción dos Viños in Santiago de Compostela. When they told me they’d made a limited run (1,800 bottles) of red wine from vines ranging from 25 to 130 years old, I knew I had to get my hands on some.
Red wines account for only 9% of the output of the Ribeiro DO, which is a pity as the growing conditions, coupled with granite and sandy loam soils in the Castrelo de Miño area, are great for the lighter, fresher and fruitier type of red currently in vogue around the world.
There’s far too little space here to bang on about the nearsighted marketing policy that has resulted in the relegation of these wines to obscurity for so long, so I’ll leave that to our correspondent and friend Miguel Crunia, who’s written extensively on the subject via his Atlantic Sommelier blog, and also to the authoritative voice of Boas Vides viticultor Antonio Míguez Amil.
Back to El Tinto de Candela y Valentina. When I met Jonathan and Fatima last year, Fatima was nearing the end of her pregnancy, so when her daughters Candela and Valentina finally arrived, it was lovely to hear that their first red cuvée had been named after them. Candela and Valentina are gorgeous in themselves, but when a wine gets to bear their name, more’s the better.
The wine
All the grapes are harvested by hand. Part of the selection takes place out in the vineyard with a double check in the cellar. After destemming, the grapes go into a stainless steel vat with a pump-over taking place twice a day during alcoholic fermentation.
When this stage is complete, there’s an initial bleed-off of the wine, with the pomace being transferred to the press to finish off the process. After final racking, the wine spends three months in French oak barrels before bottling.
The nose is packed with red fruit like cherry, raspberry, some rose petal, forest floor, white pepper and a herbaceous feel with some liquorice. In the mouth it’s redolent of the wines of north-west Spain, with that tell-tale granite grip and freshness, with the finish being clean and persistent.
El Tinto de Candela y Valentina is a food-friendly wine that saw off my quail in escabeche salad admirably. In short, a top-drawer Ribeiro tinto well worth seeking out.