The 2008 Bastardo was by far my favorite of these varietal/experimental bottlings. Bastardo is nothing other than Trousseau from Jura, and while I find many examples in Galicia really different from the ones from Jura, this one shares a few characteristics; quite light-colored, with a high-pitched nose dominated by red fruits and Mediterranean herbs and a spicy touch, something of a contradiction as 2008 was what he defined as “the last of the true Atlantic vintages.” The palate shows a light to medium-bodied wine, with clean, delineated acidity, very fine, polished tannins and pure flavors, a bit herbaceous, bitter and savage. Again, a wine of marked personality. Drink 2013-2019.
Quinta da Muradella was created in 1993 by Jose Luis Mateo with 15 hectares of owned vineyards in different zones of the Monterrei appellation, some on the valley floor, some on the slopes and some others in the mountain zones where some vineyards reach 100 years of age. He works 20 different plots. All his vineyards are organically certified. He makes a total of 40,000 bottles per year, and experiments with different grapes, different zones, fermenting and aging vessels (wood, stainless steel, concrete) trying to understand the region and the grapes and what works best. Sometimes it’s difficult to understand the process he uses to make some of the wines, and you’ll see that he moves the wines from inox to barrel, from cement to whatever, in what seems to be quite a complicated operation. Some things work and some don’t. He makes varietal wines to examine the different grapes and their potential, he tries different blends, and his ultimate idea is to identify the ideal blend of ancient varieties, the ones that were planted in the region before phyloxera, not only to make the wine, but to plant those varieties already mixed in the vineyard. His collection of wines is completely different from the rest of the wines produced in the appellation. If you ever visit Verin, which has a beautiful old town center and an impressive castle, you should make sure you visit the Mateo family’s bar, A Canteira (the name comes from their father who was a canteiro, a stone mason), where they serve their own house wine, both white and red, made by Jose Luis. It is the best house wine I’ve ever tried in a restaurant. The locals just don’t know how lucky they are. About the person himself, Jose Luis Mateo is extremely humble, a quality I find in the best people across different professions – very generous with his time and everything else. He’s passionate about what he’s doing, and he considers his work a long-term project to bring value and quality to the wines of his region, “hoping that someone will take over and continue the things that I’m doing,” he said. When I asked him what he’d change if he could start again he was very clear. “I’d focus on the mountain vineyards,” he told me. I asked what if it had to be somewhere else in Galicia? “To me the place would be Ribeiro.” And now for something completely different! Jose Luis has been making a range of varietal red wines that he was reluctant to show, since quantities are sometimes tiny, but I found some of them too good not to talk about them; some are also non-DO wines declassified to the Vino de Mesa category.
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