2021 Rafael Palacios As Sortes Magnum

Rafael Palacios, brother of famous winemaker Alvaro Palacios from Priorat, started making wine in Valdeorras in 2004. He bought old vineyards with godello grapes from local farmers. All 22.5 hectares of the company are planted with this grape, spread over 26 vineyards. The age of the vines varies from 7 to 91 years old. All the plots are organically farmed. He does his best plots: Sorte O Soro, Sorte Antiga and Os Canieros entirely in biodynamics. The name of the wine As Sortes is Galician for 'heritage lots'. After all, the Galician inheritance law system is set up in such a way that every child receives an equal share of a piece of land, in this way the vineyards are of course incredibly fragmented and everyone gets a 'sorte' or inheritance lot. It often happens that a vineyard of 1 ha is divided into 10 different lots or 'sortes'. The plural As Sortes are therefore many heirlooms together in one wine. Rafa has his vineyards in Santa Cruz do Bolo, where the soil is different from the rest in Valdeorras. The soil here is completely granite, with a top texture of coarse sand grains originating from the eroded granite. The granite here is composed of feldspar, mica and quartz. Especially the quartz, a mineral of crystallized silicon, gives a mineral and salty character to the wines. The pluviometry is high, so that the soils have a very low pH and therefore a very high acidity. All the 'sortes' have the same soils, with only the texture and size of the grains varying. The altitude varies from 650 to 720 m.

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