Like many contemporary Rías Baixas vineyard owners, Alberto Cabaco made his fortune in Galicia’s lucrative fishing industry. Retired and with no children, he returned to his birthplace of Gondomar, a village nestled among lush Atlantic forests of the Miñor Valley in the northern reaches of the O Rosal subregion. As a child, he’d worked in his grandfather’s wine warehouse here—the kind of place where locals would fill their small kegs from larger barrels.

In 2015, the terraced vineyards surrounding the 17^th-century Baroque style Pazo de Barreiro were in disrepair and divided into 30 plots, with as many different owners. Given that it is said that one does not buy land in Galicia—one bribes the owner to part with it—Cabaco must have shown tremendous forbearance to purchase and consolidate the 3.5 hectares that comprise the Pentecostés vineyard today. In seeing it through, he formed the first commercial vineyard in this valley in over a hundred years. 

“[Rías Baixas is] one of the most exciting areas in Europe right now, full of innovation and a wealth of exciting styles.” Tim Atkin MW

In 2018, Jorge Marcote entered the story. Born on the coast not 10 kilometres west, Marcote is a young sommelier turned winegrower with a clear grasp of the principles of great wine. He had long sensed the Miñor Valley’s potential to grow the intense, racy Rías Baixas wines he loved to drink; he didn’t waste a second accepting Cabaco’s offer. Protected to the north by the Monte Castelo, this is one of the region’s driest valleys. Facing the ocean, the landscape bathes in the cooling breezes that funnel off the Atlantic. Equally important, the soils here are rich in minerals, with 20 centimetres of topsoil before the roots tap into the granite bedrock. As Marcote puts it, if he could design a terroir from scratch, it would look something like Penetcostés. 

Given carte blanche to redesign the vineyard and build a cellar, Marcote first rebuilt and then replanted the terraces of Pazo de Barreiro to Albariño, Caiño Blanco, Loureira and Treixadura, matching each variety to one of the slope’s five different orientations. The vines are farmed without inputs—organic certification will follow—and a small winery was built at Mañufe, overlooking the vineyard. Marcote has installed a cold room for pre-ferment maceration, and alongside the stainless-steel fermenters are a few French oak barrels to impart complexity without masking the mineral streak of his wines. Delicate destemming, light pressing, spontaneous fermentation (rare in the region) and aging on lees form the basis of Marcote’s earth-to-glass approach.  

Releasing its first wines from the 2021 vintage, Pentecostés is a babe in arms, yet the wines pack a hell of a punch. They are fleshy, structurally complex and mouth-wateringly tense—a sommelier’s delight—and far removed from the textbook stereotype of Rías Baixas. In some ways, they remind us of José Antonio López’s once-great, steely-salty Albariños from the Pazo Piñeiro in Condado de Tea. If that reference is obscure, dry German Riesling and Chablis are good markers. The wines are so good we pretty much placed our order on the spot.