Albariño, O Con, Viños de Encostas by Xosé Lois Sebio 2022
Vinous 93 (2026)
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Why this wine
Almost no Albariño is made like this - a single old-vine plot above the sea, ten months in large French oak, and 14% of genuine weight. It shows what the grape can do when it is treated as a serious white rather than a summer refresher.
At a glance
- Grape
- Albariño
- Region
- Galicia, Spain
- Alcohol
- 14.00%
- Body
- Full
- Acidity
- High
- Sweetness
- Dry
- Drink
- Medium (5-10 yrs)
- Pairs with
- Seafood, Poultry & Pork, Rich & Creamy Dishes
How it tastes
Peach skin, mandarin peel and honeysuckle meet sea breeze and a subtle creaminess, then stone fruit, orange skin and jasmine on the palate. Full-bodied at 14% and dry, opulent in texture from its time in oak, yet held taut by high acidity and a real sense of tension. Albariño 100%.
The producer
Viños de Encostas is the personal project of the winemaker Xosé Lois Sebio, built on a search for wines of marked identity from awkward, neglected sites that conventional viticulture finds too expensive to farm; the wines are made with minimal intervention and low sulphur, and the stated aim is to express soil, variety and place rather than any fashion. O Con comes from a single vineyard, 'Sobre a Mina', in the Aios area of Sanxenxo in the O Salnés subzone of Rías Baixas, where 70-year-old low-yielding Albariño vines are trellised at high density close to the sea; the cooling Atlantic breezes keep the canopy ventilated and healthy and leave saline nuances in the wine, while clay-schistous soils give it an intense, mineral cast. Cover crops maintain the soil and its biodiversity, natural preparations come before any treatment, and the vineyard is worked and picked entirely by hand. The grapes were whole-bunch pressed and settled for 48 to 72 hours, fermentation began with indigenous yeasts in stainless steel and was finished with selected ones, and midway through the wine was racked to 700-litre fine-grained French oak barrels, new to four years old, where it spent ten months; it was racked off its lees monthly, the lees there to keep the wine fresh rather than to build volume.
Food and drinking
Serve at 11 to 12°C, not fridge-cold, or the texture closes up. It takes on turbot in butter, roast pork belly, scallops with cream and a mature Idiazábal. Worth five to ten years in the cellar; no decanting needed, but a large glass and half an hour open will repay you. Suitable for vegetarians and vegans.