93+WA 
Telmo Rodriguez

93+ pts Robert Parker Wine Advocate (Gutierrez)
The nose of the 2020 Falcoeira A Capilla comes through as the ripest of the reds from 2020, despite being bottled at 13.5% alcohol. It has notes of ripe berries, touches of soy sauce and iodine and a juicy and tasty palate, rich with deep flavors, and a long-lasting finish. It fermented in a 3,000-liter oak vat and matured in a 2,000-liter oak foudre. 2,664 bottles were filled in July 2022.

I tasted the wines from Galicia from Telmo Rodríguez as part of the whole portfolio tasting a couple of months ago, and the notes were published in a specific article. But now that I have tasted all the relevant wines from the different regions of Galicia, I thought it would make sense to include those notes again here, for completeness of this article and context for the rest of wines from the region, in this case Valdeorras. They have discontinued the Gaba do Xil red and replaced the white with a single-vineyard bottling from the O Barreiro lieu-dit, also reducing volumes. Here, they are releasing mostly 2020s, except for the younger white from 2022. They are both warm years with an early harvest that resulted in ripe wines, with the complication of lots of fungal diseases in 2020 that decimated the crop. In Galicia, the organic certification is complex when you have neighbors, so they are still in a transition moment.

Falcoeira a Capilla, in the village of Santa Cruz, is thought of by locals as one of the very best grand cru vineyards in the area, displaying the fantastic depth and finesse of which the finest vineyards from this interior part of Galicia are capable. Falcoeira is always a richer wine compared to its siblings As Caborcas and O Diviso. Falcoeira sits at 400 to 600 meters on narrow, vertiginous terraces clinging to steep slopes oriented to the southwest. The vineyard had been totally neglected, and it took over a decade to pull out the wild vegetation, rebuild the terraces, and re-plant 100 stone terraces with 2.75ha of vineyards. Vines are now around 20 years old, planted with biologically-diverse heritage clones from ancient vineyards of mencía, sousón, merenzao, and caíño tinto. The vineyard is split in two by a small access road. The fruit above the road is planted to red grapes for Falcoeira tinto, and the bottom, closer to the Bibei river, is planted to the white varieties godello, doña branca, and palomino that go into Falcoeira Branco. The soils here are coarsely textured decomposed granite known as sábrego. Falcoeira is an intense and profound wine, like the place it comes from, which makes it one of the most exciting wines in the world. Viticulture is organic, the grapes are hand-harvested, and wines are made with low intervention. Falcoeira is extremely limited.

• Site: Falcoeira at 400m to 600m
• Grapes: Mencía, Sousón, Merenzao, Caíño Tinto
• Soil: Decomposed granite – sábrego
• Vinification: Spontaneous fermentation with indigenous yeast in French oak barrels and stainless-steel tanks
• Aging: 12 months in used 2,000L used-French oak foudres