Ode to María, Cris and Doña Encarna
Adrian McManus is reminded, once again, that every great bottle of wine carries the memory of a place.
Some places stay with you long after you've left them. Not because they're grand or famous, but because of the people.
Anyone who ever spent a morning at Albariño Don Olegario back in the day will know exactly what I mean. We weren't really visiting a winery at all. We were being welcomed into a family's home.
I still get a pang of nostalgia when I think about those mornings surrounded by trellised Albariño in the Salnés Valley. The smell of damp granite after an early shower, a bit of sea air drifting up from the Ría de Arousa and María laughing her way through the vineyards as she explained what was happening in the vines. There was never anything scripted about it. What you saw was what you got.
María Falcón and Cristina Yagüe
And then there was the aperitif.
Out would come Doña Encarna with her spider crab paté and a stack of Mariñeiras crackers. When you thought things couldn't get any better, she'd disappear into the kitchen and reappear with a freshly baked empanada. It wasn't fancy. It wasn't designed for Instagram. It was simply generous Galician hospitality at its very best.
Over the years, I’ve taken many people there on a visit, and without exception, they all still talk about those mornings. The wine was excellent, of course, but it was the warmth of the family and the setting that people remembered most.
Memories of a wonderful visit with Doña Encarna
For the real wine obsessives, though, there was one extra treat. Now and then, if we were lucky, María would produce a bottle of their late harvest Albariño, 1/2 Pipa. Production was tiny, and some vintages never happened at all. When noble rot worked its magic in the vineyard, the result was something quite special: concentrated, honeyed, complex and unmistakably Atlantic. It wasn't a wine you tasted every day, and perhaps that was part of its charm.
Of course, things move on.
When María decided to close the doors to visits and strike out in a new direction, it was a brave decision. Easy to admire in hindsight, perhaps, but much harder when you're actually the one doing the leaping. Looking at what she and Cristina have achieved with Anónimas Viticultoras, though, it's impossible not to feel they made the right choice. Their project is rooted in the same authenticity that made Don Olegario so special back then, while shining a light on the women whose work has so often gone unnoticed in Galicia's vineyards.
María and Cris working the vines at Anónimas Viticultoras
Today, they're working across several regions, from Ribeira Sacra to Valdeorras, yet somehow, they remain the same people I first met fifteen years ago.
What felt then like a family home opening its doors to visitors turned out to be the starting point of a remarkable journey. I’ll always miss those mornings in Cambados. I’ll miss Doña Encarna’s cooking, the conversations around the table and, selfishly, the occasional bottle of 1/2 Pipa.
But every time I taste one of María and Cris’s wines, I’m reminded that the spirit of those mornings never disappeared. It simply evolved. The warmth, the honesty, the respect for the vineyard and the quiet determination are all still there—just expressed through a different project and a new chapter in their lives.
Long may that continue.