Wow, my Albarino tastes like Muscadet!

Pazos de Lusco is a Rias Baixas based winery and is quite well known for their lively white wines. Today I had a chance to taste two `08 Albarinos that have just arrived in town and I thought both qualified as "musky-ringers".

The entry level Zios de Lusco is $18 Cdn and has an attractive label. Coconut on the nose was rather unusual, medium straw color. Nice mineral salinity but "did not smell like Albarino" thought Annabelle from Portugal. I did not find the aftertaste all that clean either. As it opened some nice white stone-fruit, dry with citrus tones but so-so acidity which was strange for this varietal.

The more expensive Lusco Albarino Ribera del Mino $28 Cdn was a lighter color but more leesy on the palate. Elegant, cleaner taste with slatey minerality. Seems to come from selected sites by the Mino river (back label). Excellent acidity, bright citrus finish, very nice wine.

I have sometimes had the same thought, Bob. I think that Albariño is a touch fruitier and more aromatic but I wouldn't at all guarantee making the differentiation blind .

I agree, lots of similarities between these Atlantic wines. (Although I don't know much about the terroir for Albarino in Spain?) But it seems much depends on the specifics of the cuvee. But both are great summer fun.

Several weeks ago I took part a blind tasting of eight lightly oaked whites (4 months sur lie in one year old medium-toasted barriques) from the 2009 vintage and rather easily mistook the Albarino for a Muscadet. Only afterwards was I told that my hosts were among winemakers raising Albarino here in Israel. The plantings are to date limited in scope and mostly experimental. Interestingly enough, my personal spies inform me that Albarino is also being raised experimentally by two wineries in Lebanon. Indeed a promising grape for our region.

Best
Rogov

Several weeks ago I took part a blind tasting of eight lightly oaked whites (4 months sur lie in one year old medium-toasted barriques) from the 2009 vintage and rather easily mistook the Albarino for a Muscadet. Only afterwards was I told that my hosts were among winemakers raising Albarino here in Israel. The plantings are to date limited in scope and mostly experimental. Interestingly enough, my personal spies inform me that Albarino is also being raised experimentally by two wineries in Lebanon. Indeed a promising grape for our region.

Best
Rogov

Interesting. My gut instinct would be that Israel and Lebanon are too hot and dry for Albariño, which flourishes in cool and damp Galicia and North Portugal.