Atalaque (Rodriguez de Vera), Albillo de la Longuera, Castilla y Leon 2022 - 75cl
This one has a story worth telling. Pepe Rodríguez de Vera works in the Sierra de Gredos, the granite mountains west of Madrid that have become one of Spain's most exciting wine regions. La Longuera is a plot of Albillo Real vines, ungrafted and roughly 120 years old, that was about to be pulled out before he stepped in to save it. What you're drinking is genuinely rare — around 1,000 bottles a year from vines older than most countries' wine industries.
Albillo Real is the great white grape of Gredos, and on this old, high-altitude granite it makes something with real presence. The wine is unfiltered, medium lemon in the glass, and made with a light touch — twelve months resting on its lees in French oak to build texture without smothering the fruit.
The nose is clean and expressive: white flowers, stone fruit, a mineral, stony edge, and a lift of wild mountain herbs and aniseed. On the palate it's medium-bodied and creamy, with crisp acidity keeping everything fresh, a subtle spice, and a long, persistent, gently savoury finish. It's a food wine through and through, and it has the structure to keep improving over the next few years.
How to Serve
Serve at 10–12°C in a decent-sized white wine glass — too cold and you'll mute those herbal, floral aromatics. It's worth giving a young bottle a little air.
Where to Drink It
Barrafina, for its Spanish cooking and adventurous list. Sabor in Mayfair, for grilled seafood. Noble Rot, always keen on old-vine curiosities like this.
Food Pairings
Grilled white fish with olive oil and herbs suits it perfectly. It's also lovely with roast chicken, or a plate of jamón and aged Manchego.
