Ladeiras do Xil - Gaba do Xil Tinto 2019

Ladeiras do Xil — named after the Sil River hillsides — is the Galician project of Pablo Eguzkiza and Telmo Rodríguez, who started working in Galicia in 2002. The vineyards are in the southwestern part of Valdeorras, near the village Santa Cruz and monastery of Las Ermitas, just along the border of Ribeira Sacra. All of Ladeiras do Xil's vineyards are organic, bush trained and grown on shallow, acidic and coarse-textured decomposed granite soils. The vines are co-planted along the steep terraces and conisist exclusively of indigenous varietals: Merenzao, Sousón, Mencía, Godello, Treixadura, Godello Tinto, Brancellao, Doña Blanca, Garnacha, and Palomino. Since 2014, Jorge Saa has led the project, where he and his team work tirelessy on restoring the centuries-old terraces and replanting the indigenous varieties as they were in the past. All grapes are hand-harvested and only indigenous yeasts are used for fermentation. Minimal intervention in the winery and low sulfur at bottling is evident in the wines’ haunting elegance.

Gaba do Xil are the estate-grown red and white village wines of Ladeiras do Xil, offering incredible value for everyday drinking, handmade Galician wines. The tinto is a blend of 70% Mencía and 30% Merenzao from hand-harvested grapes that are fermented with native yeasts in stainless steel and aged in steel for 12 months before bottling.