Bodegas Zárate "Balado" Albariño '24

Bodegas Zárate has pioneered high-quality Albariño in Rías Baixas since the mid 20th century. Today, the seventh-generation Eulogio Pomares is in charge of this ancient bodega, and he is as focused as ever on quality, following the path of his predecessors. Working with old vines and great terroirs, he makes Albariños that are among Galicia’s best white wines.

The Zárate estate was founded in 1707, in the classic Val do Salnés zone (“Salnés” is a reference to the salt flats that once covered the area; in Spanish and Galician, sal means “salt”). Formed by the lower reaches of the Umia River, its undulating slopes of xabre—weathered granite—soil, and cool climate make Val do Salnés the region’s greatest terroir and home to its longest-lived wines.

Here Pomares farms the oldest documented Albariño vineyard in Rías Baixas—the pre-phylloxera El Palomar, planted in 1850—and several other top sites. Even the wines from Zarate’s younger plantings show uncommon depth, richness, and age-worthiness, a result of the estate’s great terroirs and winemaking methods. 

The estate’s farming is almost fully biodynamic; the soil is worked manually, with cover crops used for genetic diversity, and biodynamic teas for vine and soil treatments. This approach is particularly notable given that the estate is in Spain’s coolest and wettest winegrowing region. All new plantings are massal selections from the estate’s oldest vines.

The Zárate “Balado” is made from 100% Albariño, harvested from ungrafted old vines, with an average age of around 60 years. The vines are planted on shallow xabre soils and trained in emparrado. The fruit comes from two small parcels that face south and are enclosed by a granite wall (balo in Galician); the vineyard is in the parish of Padrenda, in the center of Val do Salnés. The wine is made with wild-yeast fermentation and aged on the lees for more than six months in stainless steel tanks.

Beautiful notes of citrus and white flowers on the nose. Bright, but also textural with a mixture of stone fruit and citrus notes on the palate. Finishes with incredible minerality and length. I drank a bottle of this at Nozomi in Valencia this summer, one of the very best sushi restaurants in Spain, with this brilliant old-vine Albariño, it was a match made in heaven.