Forjas del Salnes Albarino Leirana 2025 CRV5 and more pinot-like than anything

and more pinot-like than anything you'd expect from the region

butterscotch and golden apple on the nose

elegant Pinot that channels old vines and cool Patagonian winds

but one where the better addresses pulled off ripeness without flab

Forjas del Salnes Albarino Leirana 2025 CRV5 and more pinot-like than anythingRias Baixas sits barely a few miles from the Atlantic, and you can taste it. Rodrigo Mendez farms granite rooted vines in Val do Salnes, the birthplace of Albarino, where more than five feet of rain a year and relentless sea wind make farming a fight and where the poor, sandy granite soils have kept old vines alive for over a century. Leirana is his everyday bottling and it is anything but ordinary: native yeast fermentation, mostly neutral foudre