Cíes Albariño

Enter your zip code to find the closest retailer to purchase online

Winemaker Notes

Pale gold. Vibrant, mineral-accented aromas of orange, pear and honeysuckle, along with a spicy topnote that gains strength as the wine opens up. Lively and sharply focused on the palate, offering intense citrus and orchard fruit flavors underscored by chalky minerality. Finishes dry, nervy and impressively long, leaving resonating orange zest and floral qualities behind. -- Josh Raynolds

Wine Information

In 2012 Rodrigo Mendez decided to set up a new and personal project under his own name. His goal was to produce wines that authentically reflect the terroir of Galicia's Rías Baixas region, adhering to biodynamic farming principles. Rooted in his family’s legacy and inspired by his grandfather’s teachings, Rodri emphasizes simplicity and terroir. He uses ancient winemaking techniques to create age-worthy wines that capture the history and soils of the region. The winery, located in Meaño, Pontevedra, operates on a small scale and produces very limited quantities each year. Traditional methods are employed, combining stainless steel tanks with oak barrels to craft wines that showcase the unique character of the land. Cíes Albariño, named after the Cíes Islands off the coast of Pontevedra, is a small-production wine that embodies a traditional approach to Albariño from the Val do Salnés subzone. Fermented with indigenous yeast, Cíes is partially aged in old wooden vessels without temperature control, a method once common for Albariño before the widespread use of stainless steel in the 1980s. Though this technique is rare in the region today, Rodrigo Méndez has revived it to craft unique, age-worthy Albariños like Cíes.

click here for more information.