Iria Otero, Sal Albariño - 2024
Fast Facts:
Winemaker(s): Iria Otero Mazoy
Region: Val do Salnés → Rías Baixas → Galicia → Spain
Classification: DO Rías Baixas
Varietal(s): Albariño
Terroir: Sandy decomposed-granite, low coastal valley on the Atlantic
Serving Temp: 45-50°F
Iria Otero took the long way around to jump into the wine world, and we love her for it. She grew up in the northwest Spanish city of A Coruña, and was working as a pharmacist in London when the agriculture bug got her. Returning to Spain, she attended enology school at the University of La Rioja, then spent the next several years working for some serious Spanish producers. She finished her doctorate on early leaf-pulling in the Albariño vineyards of Salnés, which is a cool technical way of saying she's truly one of the most qualified person to make Albariño from this one exact place for you.
Iria went out on her own that same year, buying fruit and borrowing a friend's cellar until she built her own a few years later. She and her partner Miguel now farm a handful of small parcels across Ribeiro and Rías Baixas with no herbicides and no insecticides, which is a genuinely difficult in areas as wet as these, and they keep taking on old vineyards that were being left to go quiet.
This beauty, "Sal," comes out of Val do Salnés, a flat valley closest to the ocean and the oldest corner of Rías Baixas. The fruit is from 40 year old vines planted on granite and sábrego, which is the coarse sand left behind as granite crumbles, and gives that Albariño its salty snappy vibe. All stainless steel and the juice rests for a few months on fine lees for a bit of extra body. She also allows for partial malolactic, a second fermentation where bacteria trade hard malic acid for gentler lactic acid, which takes that squeakiness out without losing the bones.
Why'd we pick it?
Iria's own note on the name is quite stunning. Sal = Salt, which she points out is the only mineral we eat on purpose, it comes out of seawater, and its whole job is making everything around it taste more like itself. That is exactly what this bottle does and truly the beauty of mineral-forward white wines in general. There's less of a performance aspect (which, hey, we do love sometimes too), but putting it with anything truly makes the experience of the wine AND the food launch into a new dimension. We love salt! And we love sal!
Field Notes
- Tastes like: Green apple, lime, some juicy peach with flake salt, and maybe some orange blossom. Maybe. Brisky yet the textural dream from the lees keeps it from feeling anywhere near too thin.
- Serve it straight from the fridge. Let it swirl and warm slightly as you slow-sip, as that orange blossom (maybe) and round edges become more pronounced and gives you the ahhhhhhs.
- Food Pairings: The wine of mussels! Throw in lots of garlic and a good glug of the Albariño, sop up the broth with crusty bread. Gilda Pintxo are a fun lil' snack too: stick a toothpick through an olive, a pickled guindilla, and an anchovy, repeat. Albacore is also a cool move right now, and your fishmonger will be delighted to hook you up. Sear a loin rare and hit it with some charred or preserved lemon. And/or, char up sweet corn over coals and slather it with paprika-butter and lime.
