Dominio do Bibei Lalume Blanco Ribeira Sacra 2018

Since his first vintage in 2001, Javier Dominguez’s Dominio do Bibei has been widely acknowledged as the driving force behind the emergence of quality wines in Spain’s historic Ribeira Sacra. The Romans were the first to plant vines in the region, having arrived to mine gold. Using slave labour, they constructed hundreds of terraces on the precipitous slopes along three river gorges: the Sil, the Miño and the Bibei. Later, monks farmed the vineyards for several centuries (from whence it got its name ‘sacred riverbanks’), until the devastation of phylloxera, economic depression and civil war eventually drove local families to leave Ribeira Sacra to begin new, easier, lives elsewhere. In the late 1990s, Javier Dominguez was among an influx of young winemakers attracted by the region’s old vines and untouched, Jurassic landscape. His family bought land in the Bibei valley, Ribeira’s most easterly sub-region, and today they own a 140 hectare estate, of which 45 hectares are planted with vines. Since then, he has worked tirelessly to revive the region and its indigenous vines, undertaking what is known locally as ‘heroic viticulture’.

Lalume is a precise, barrel-fermented Treixadura with aromas of white stone fruit, floral notes and honeysuckle. On the palate, it is precisely textured with good acidity and a long finish.