Vides de Fontán, an albariño with 3 years of aging

The most complex of Pazo Baion’s wines is a marvel made with grapes from the highest plots of the estate. Its an albariño with 3 years of aging give it a powerful personality

Twenty years ago, few would have believed it. An albariño with 3 years of aging? A Rias Baixas wine that ages and ages to gain unctuousness, personality and nuances? It’s not possible. It happens that time, in the right hands, can become the best teacher. In the vehicle to create an absolutely different wine. We present Pazo Baion Vides de Fontan.

An «eternal albariño», in the words of the prestigious winemaker José Hidalgo. An elaboration that is the synthesis of the project that Condes de Albarei launched in Pazo Baion in 2008.

Both the wine and the winery are the product of an inheritance. Of the five centuries of history that have made the pazo one of the inescapable references within the DO Rías Baixas.

Not in vain, the vines that today give life to labels such as Vides de Fontan, Pazo Baion or Gran a Gran are the natural consequence of a journey through time.

A path that connects with the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when white vines were already being cultivated in the pazo, probably of the albariño variety.

Pazo Baion Vides de Fontan is the testimony of that legacy. A wine that looks to the past as well as to the future.
The natural evolution of a winery that has always wanted to go further. That has shown a permanent concern to create, to innovate, to explore.

This is how winemakers José Hidalgo and Andrea Obenza created Vides de Fontan. An exceptional albariño with 3 years of aging made from grapes harvested in the highest plots of the estate.

A wine that is in fact pure exclusivity. Pazo Baion only produces 6.000 bottles a year. The first ones came into the world in 2019 with the 2016 vintage.

An albariño with 3 years of aging, goodbye to clichés

Because this is the main characteristic of this elaboration. Vides de Fontan is a Rias Baixas wine and it’s not. It allows us to recognize the nuances of the best albariños, yes, but it moves away from the most classic structure. That which identifies these wines as young, fruity and light.

Our protagonist escapes from tradition thanks to its 3 years of aging. A production process that plays with the passage of time and with the different steps established by the Pazo Baion winemaking team.

In the first phase, two thirds of the selected raw material will ferment in French oak vats. There it will remain for a year.

The remaining part will be aged in stainless steel before being transferred to a concrete egg in which it will evolve for another year.

At the end of this time, the three parts will be in a stainless steel tank for another year. With this joint baggage, the only thing left to do is bottling.

A final phase in which it will remain for twelve months before making the leap to the markets and delighting wine lovers.

No one like one of the creators of this marvel to talk about the creature. Jose Hidalgo says that Pazo Baion Vides de Fontan is «the best this estate has to offer».

A mineral wine, with fruity nuances, but above all it is timeless. «An elaboration that will live almost forever».

Indeed, the 3 years of aging of this albariño gives it a powerful structure. Ideal to serve with fish and seafood, the natural pairing of the Rias Baixas wines. But it’s also a perfect combination with meats or more sophisticated recipes.

A different elaboration that has received the applause of the specialized critics and the general public. The Peñin Guide, without going any further, places Vides de Fontan in the Olympus of its selection by awarding it no more and no less than 95 points.

A marvel that you should never fail to try in your life.

TASTING NOTES

Bright yellow colour with greenish reflections. It has an outstanding varietal character, with the presence of white-flower (orange blossom and jasmine), stone-fruit and citrus-fruit aromas, with integrated toasted and spicy hints.

On the palate, it is refreshing and balanced, with a fine structure, oily, enveloping, mineral, with a long, aromatic, persistent finish that combines aged and varietal hints.

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