Sal da Terra - Albarino 2021
Price: $49.99
Sale Price: $39.99
| Producer | Sal da Terra |
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| Country | Spain |
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| Region | Rias Baixas |
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| Varietal | Albarino |
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| Vintage | 2021 |
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| Sku | 15328 |
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| Size | 750ml |
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I cannot possibly compete with Ms. Robinson’s take on this wine, but I will add a few thoughts before turning it over to her.
I’ll be honest… I haven’t drunk an Albarino in ages. Five years? Eight? I cannot even recall. As popularity of the grape exploded, I found the quality to decline. So when this bottle showed up in a shipment of samples, I had very little expectations for it. Usually, my plan with sample bottles like this is to use them as cooking wine after I have given it a taste. Pasta with shrimp and fresh veggies with a white wine sauce was on the menu, so I figured this was a perfect choice.
It wasn’t - because one sip and I knew this wine was something special. No way was a drop of this going anywhere but my mouth. Oh, and my wife’s… not by choice, mind you. But she heard me exclaim and came over for a sip. Then took the bottle and poured herself a large glass!
Everything about this wine is just super-charged. It bursts forth with aromas and flavors of nectarines and citrus, leading into a surprisingly rich mouthfeel. But it’s the salinity that stands out… there is something slightly saline and altogether mouthwatering about this wine that you simply cannot help but go back for another sip. Then, it excites your taste buds again… and you are beholden to dive in for more! Ah…
“Wine is a very fashion-conscious field. Various wines have their moment in the sun. One wine that seemed to me to be suddenly fashionable about 10 years ago was Albariño from the damp, far north-west of Spain. There was a time when Albariño seemed like Spanish for white wine. I loved it at the end of the 2000s but gradually grew bored with it, not least because the wines became increasingly samey. With a few notable exceptions, they seemed to have lost their distinctive marine tang and I can’t remember the last time I bought or ordered one.
But I came across an example, Sal da Terra Albariño… that struck me as outstanding and it rekindled my admiration for the grape variety. The wine is well under 13% alcohol but there is real breadth to its impact on the palate (unlike so many Albariños) and a delightfully distinct sea-breeze quality to it, with impressive grip on the end. This is the wine, whose name means ‘salt of the earth’, that has made me fall in love with Albariño again.” Jancis Robinson
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