Our first Tour du Vin of 2022 was to Galicia in North West Spain – and what a fabulous trip it was.
We had a party of seasoned Waud Wine Club tourists on the trip – as we embarked on a 3 day trip across the appellations of Bierzo, Valdeorras, Ribeiro and Rias Baixas.
After flying into Santiago de Compostela airport, and picking up the Fun Bus for our travels ahead, our first stop (after a good lunch of course) was to Raul Perez in Bierzo. We have listed these wines for a while – so it was a treat to have a tour around their new winery – as well as try a selection of barrel samples.
We then head 30 minutes down the road to Bodegas Pittacum – where we were brilliantly hosted by winemaker Alfredo and also Mar from their sales team. After a tour of one of their vineyards, we head inside for a fantastic tasting of pretty much their whole range. A top selection of red wines that we will look to list shortly. The sweet wine at the end of the tasting was unbelievably good!
We then stayed locally in Villafranca del Bierzo at a Parador, where we then went to a local restaurant recommendation, Mesón Don Nacho, that really was amazing – although the T-bone Veal steak was quite a lot larger than anyone could have expected!
Day 2 took us to Valdeorras, visiting Rafael Palacios. This was particularly exciting, as we have listed his wines for a while. We met with wine maker Pablo up in the mountains where we were shown the different valleys that make up the appellation. We learnt that the Palacios plots were based in the ‘Grand Cru’ areas – which is very evident when you taste the wines. We tasted a couple of different vintages of Louro and also As Sortes, that went down a storm with our tourists.
After lunch en route to Ribeiro, and a couple of fruity routes thrown up by our Waze app, we then arrived at Bodegas Coto de Gomariz. A winery famed for the Flower and the Bee white wine – made by local variety Treixadura. After a drive around their estate – we had another fantastic tasting trying their full range. We again will look forward to listing more of their wines in the near future.
Moving into Day 3, and we head South West to Albarino country in Rias Baixas, first up visiting the O Rosal appellation. Terras Gauda was the bodega of choice, that interestingly has Pittacum as part of their Group. Production here is fairly high at 1.5 million bottles of white wine per year – mainly with Albarino, Caíño Blanco and Loureiro.
After another brilliant lunch, we arrived at our last tasting of the trip, at Bodegas Zarate. This family estate is situated in the Salnes Valley – where they have been making wine for 400 years / 7 generations. Eulogio and Rebecca are some of the nicest people you can ever meet – and this was further proven as we met the Ukranian family they had taken in for the last few months. We were treated to another super range of wines – that we have ordered to be added to our range soon too.
As we checked into our last hotel on the trip, Quinta de San Amaro. We had a fine final dinner before heading off early doors to fly back to the UK.
Thanks to all of our tourists for taking part in another great Tour du Vin. Roll on the Rhone Tour in July!
