'Branco de Santa Cruz' Godello 2020

Branco de Santa Cruz is based on a little organic vineyard beneath the Valdeorras village of Santa Cruz. A Coroa is in fact the bottom part of the vineyard which gives us Telmo’s extraordinary heritage Parcela Mencia, ‘As Caborcas’. The lower ¼ of the terraces of this hill are planted to Godello in a very cool aspect facing north-west, while the upper reaches are a field blend of Mencia and other local red cultivars. (this photo is taken from the bottom of the vineyard, so you can see the Godello terraces in foreground, and the lower reaches of the Mencia-planted upper section.)

Telmo has spent many years restoring these old vines. While we call it ‘Godello’, this is a typical heritage planting of old bush-vine field-blend gear, mainly Godello with Loureiro, Doña Blanca, Palomino and others mixed in. Grown at 500 metres’ altitude, an indigenous yeast fermentation is followed by 12 months’ maturation in neutral old wooden vats. The wine is labelled Branco de Santa Cruz, since it is a village wine with some other parcels around the valley supplementing the fruit from A Coroa.

A superbly textural wine with lovely clarity, minerality and line. There's honey, wattle and crunchy gravel soil twitched up with a bunch of wild herbs. The palate has good body but lengthens beautifully, phenolics are both constructive and controlled and the whole thing is beguiling and gently expansive (but not insistent).