F. Algueira : Dolio 2021

Sweet cherries with dried plums and incense and ash. Lovely clarity and focus on the palate, this has a lifted frame with savoury edged balsamic strawberries and wet stones. Clearly very mineral. Mouthwatering acidity gives the lift with so much salty salinity around. Sea breeze. A lovely effortless take, so easy to drink and like. Ends crisp with salty stones in the mouth. Perfectly balanced and interesting. 3.7-hectare vineyard. Owner and winemaker Fernando González Riveiro.

This shows a wonderfully complex nose of dried herbs and wild berries. The medium- to full-bodied palate is elegant and bright, with focused, precise tannins and incisive energy. There’s a sense of overall balance, with ethereal, nervy fruit that gives the wine both lift and depth. A blend of 45% mencia from Carballocobo, 25% souson, 15% brancellao, 7% merenzao, and a touch of caino. Drink or hold.

Mencía, Sousón, Brancellao, Merenzao, Caíño from the villages of Carballocobo and Abeleda (total 3.7 ha). Grown on terraces on extremely steep slopes at 200–600 m above sea level on slate, schist, granite, quartz and gneiss. Harvested by hand in September. Whole bunches were foot-trodden in French open-top vats. Fermentation with indigenous yeasts in 500-litre French barrels with stems. Aged for 23 months in French oak 225-litre barriques and 2,000-litre foudre. Bottled 8 April 2025; 6,665 bottles produced. Third time on La Place. Relatively obscure? Unusually pale and ruby. A little dusty on the nose and with bruised rhubarb on the palate. Light-bodied. Not a good context to taste this wine where it’s surrounded by bordeaux-influenced bruisers! (JR)

The 2021 Dolio is the third vintage of a cuvée of 45% Mencía, 25% Sousón, 15% Brancellao, 7.5% Merenzao and 7.5% Caíño selected from two of their vineyards, Carballocobo and Cortezada, with each grape providing something and the blend of all is better than each separately. The full clusters were foot trodden and fermented in a tronconic oak vat, and part of the destemmed grapes was added and fermented together with indigenous yeasts and matured in 225-liter barrels and 2,000-liter foudres for 23 months. It has lower alcohol than previous years; in 2021, it's only 13% (a full 1% less than 2022), keeping a pH of 3.4 and 5.7 grams of acidity. I kept it in the glass for a long time, and the wine opened up beautifully. Their aim is to produce a long-lived wine. 6,665 bottles were filled in April 2025.