Appellation: Ribeiro
Cuvée: Arraiano Tinto
Colour: Red
Grapes: Caíño Longo, Brancellao, Sousón and others
About: Arraiano is Cume’s entry level wine made partly from purchased fruit while waiting for their own vineyards to become fully productive as well as free from the fungus encouraged by the climate and so difficult to manage with organic only. They buy from vineyards in the Avia valley just a few kilometres away. The name comes from the Galician word “raia” which means border. An “arraiano” is someone who slips over the border. This became a thing when Galicia was desperately poor after the Civil War and people slipped over the nearby border with Portugal to buy basic goods. So Cume slip over the border of their Eira de Mouros vineyard to buy much needed grapes. The wine is gloriously light-bodied and refreshing yet intensely fruity and bone dry.
Vines
Location: The Vall d’Avia
Size: 3 ha
Age: planted in 2003 and 2008
Soils: granite
Exposition: various
Altitude: around 200 to 300m
Training: on wire
Farming philosophy: basically organic but not certified
Average: cool and often wet, with Atlantic influence
Winemaking
Varieties are co-fermented using 40% whole bunches in a re-conditioned chestnut tank with three weeks on skins. Tempertature lightly controlled to prevent exceeding 27ºC. Racked and put back into same tank to age for 9 months before bottling. Using wild yeasts and no sulfur during vinification, just a little at bottling and only rarely. See SO2T below.
Vintage Notes 2021
A very cool and wet year when the sun hardly shone and the grapes really struggled to ripen and also to deal with mildew. Yet the results are great, very fresh, very pure wines with good fruit intensity.
Date harvested:
Yield hl/ha: 50
Date bottled: 2022-07
Bottles produced: 8,500
Alcohol %: 10
SO2 Total: < 20
Tasting: 2022-11-18 lovely, light-bodied, very refreshing, juicy, crunchy, fine tannins, saline, stylish red berry, earthy, vegetal fruit, quite Pinot-esque, good energy.