There is only one Raul Perez. Very few winemakers in the world have his talent, creativity, and fearlessness. We met Raul a few years back on his home turf in Bierzo where he grew up. We were invited into his cellar where we saw his concrete egg (pretty avant garde equipment ten years ago), and tasted everything in barrel from brilliant reserve level Mencia-based wines to an awful Riesling. He showed everything with the same expression on his face, from great wines to bad, because he wasn’t concerned about anyone’s opinion. He was merely demonstrating how his learning process worked. Raul doesn’t just think ‘outside the box’. We’re pretty sure he doesn’t know, or care, if there is a ‘box’. Certainly, that open approach has a lot to do with his success.
At the time his wines were like hen’s teeth, made in miniscule quantities. Most consumers still don’t know Bierzo even though outsider Alvaro Palacios gave the region international exposure around the turn of the century. Galician whites, like the focus of today’s offering, enjoy only a slightly greater level of recognition.
Raul's spin on Galician white wine? He wondered what would happen if you submerged a shark cage full of bottles of Albarino in the sea for a period of time. It turned out to become a $75-a-bottle Albarino called ‘Sketch’ that dazzled the few people that were fortunate enough to taste it.
Eventually Raul changed his distribution scenario, and to a certain extent his focus, which allowed for some pretty substantial price decreases. At the same time it appears he kicked his own high winemaking standards up a notch, which created an even more appealing scenario for consumers. Now he not only makes some of the best boutique, limited bottlings anywhere, but some of the most compelling values as well.
The Raul Perez Atalier a Cruz Das Animas Albarino Rias Baixas 2017 is the second release from a new Albarino project featuring Raul in conjunction with his friend and frequent collaborator Rodri Méndez of the Forjas del Salnés estate in the Val do Salnés subzone (for Albarino geeks, Rodri’s family founded the esteemed Do Ferreiro). The first, a 2016, was attention-getting and delicious. But while it made an impression, it was essentially cobbled together from a variety of sites by Raul to get something out into the market. The 2017 is essentially the first real example of what this wine will be going forward, from three specific coastal sites dedicated to this label. The vines are generally old, with a number of them in one of the vineyards in Val do Sanez being pre-phylloxera (yes, that means 140-160 years old!).
