Appellation: none
Cuvée: Rosalía
Colour: White
Grapes: Albariño
About: Sotelo’s entry level and most accessible wine. Named after Galician writer Rosalía de Castro. The label captures the Atlantic character of the wine with a pattern of scallop shells. It’s from the younger vineyards.
Vines
Location: from around 40 tiny plots all over Cambados
Size: 1 ha
Age: planted in 1990’s
Soils: granite
Exposition: a gentle south orientation
Altitude: 20-40m
Training: all the vines are planted on pergola trellising lifting it off the floor to avoid damp and to increase ventilation.
Farming philosophy: basically organic, with natural treatments, as little as possible conventional organic (sulfur, copper).
Average yield hl/ha: 45
Climate: humid, Atlantic, but benefitting from sea breezes, cool but increasingly warm in winter and hot in summer.
Winemaking
The harvest is carried out into small buckets of 10 to 15 litres and then transported within 30 minutes to an hour to the cellar, there’s no analysis of the grapes just tasting and looking at the juice. The fruit is then pressed in a low-pressure pneumatic press direct to stainless steel tank to ferment and age. There is nothing added or taken, no sulfites at any stage. The malo happens naturally. The wine is bottled unfined and unfiltered, usually in a small window of opportunity in the summer when the wine has fallen clear.
Vintage Notes 2021
Another difficult up and down year. A wet warm winter, which didn’t allow the sap to rest sufficiently, was followed by a wet spring with up and down temperatures that favoured mildew. There followed a hot and dry June, a moderate July, then a hot and dry August that ended with significant rains at the end and into September.
Date bottled: 2022-06
Bottles produced: 6000
Alcohol %: 12,5
SO2 Total: < 20
Tasting: 2022-07-28 super fresh, lively, balanced, salty, quince, lemon, apple, persistent, super natural and clean and bright. Light to medium body.