D. Ventura Viña Caneiro Ribeira Sacra 2020

Ventura is from the soft-spoken Ramón Losada and his family, who farm 6ha of old vines to make small amounts of single-vineyard wines in one of the most remote wine regions in the world, Ribeira Sacra. Ramón is the picture of a humble farmer, with his full-time job as the village veterinarian consuming whatever time is left after tending to his vines. He even finds a little time to raise a rare heritage breed of Galician pig, from which he makes incredible sausages to keep the breed going. In 1999, he and his sister Belen refurbished the cellar in the ancient family farmhouse in Pantón and began bottling and selling their wines, which until then were for self-consumption. Since then, they have made many fans of their honest, soulful red wines from Galicia’s rugged interior mountains. 

Viña Caneiro is made from a single vineyard planted to the indigenous red mencía grape, located in the Amandi sub-zone, which has been famous throughout time as one of the best sites in Ribeira Sacra. Viña Caneiro is a steep, 90-year-old, 1ha vineyard planted on schist soils known locally as losa. The vineyard is terraced with traditional Galician stone walls and vines that plunge towards the Sil river, in one of the most picturesque and famous parts of Ribeira Sacra. The river adds a sweet freshness to this plot, cooling it during the heat of the day and producing opulent Grand Cru-level wines with dark fruit, exotic spices, and impressive structure. Caneiro is made in very small quantities in the best vintages. 

Vinification – After a manual harvest in small boxes, the grapes are completely destemmed, crushed, and spontaneously fermented with indigenous yeasts in temperature-controlled stainless steel tanks. Half the wine ages for nine months on the lees in stainless steel tanks, and the other half spends nine months in large French oak foudres. The wine is bottled directly from the tank, unfined, unfiltered.