Wrong Drink, Right Place

The night before our Camino de Santiago pilgrimage began, Carrie and I left the kids in the hotel room and headed down to the bar, just like any good pilgrims would. There were quite a few people in there, all locals it seemed. We ordered in the best Spanish we could muster an Albariño from Rías Baixas and felt pretty pleased with ourselves when a bottle actually arrived.

The waiter actually opened two Albariños from the same winery, Granbazán. One was very fresh and crisp with a green plastic cork. The other had less acidity and a little more weight. I was probably sitting there Googling the winery when we noticed something else: every single person in the bar besides us was drinking a dark beverage in a tall tumbler over ice.

We asked the waiter what everyone was having.

“Martini,” he said.

What?

“Vermut.” (Vermouth in Spanish.)

So there I was, already the extra-large foreigner standing out like a sore thumb, and apparently, I was drinking the wrong thing too.

A Blog-Inspiring Podcast

I was sent straight back to that trip this weekend while pressing wine and listening to the Wine for Normal People podcast where Elizabeth Schneider was talking about Albariño and specifically Rías Baixas in Galicia, Spain.

Like Grüner Veltliner, I don’t think I’ve ever had an Albariño I didn’t like.

And how topical, since we’re making an Albariño this year!

Just kidding. We only make Rhône varieties here at Holly’s Hill… usually.

We Actually Have Made Albariño

Back in 2019, our friends at Delfino Farms were building their winery and it wasn’t going to be ready by harvest. They asked us to make their wines for them.

Along with some fun Central Coast Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, they brought us their estate Albariño.

We had never made one before.

It turned out pretty good. I just checked and Wine Enthusiast gave it 92 points. We didn’t see it through bottling, but we’ll still accept at least a little of the credit. It was a fun, exhausting harvest. Their wines added about 35 tons to everything we were already making ourselves.

Apparently we decided there wasn’t enough going on in our lives that year.

The Other Drink of Galicia

That same year, just a few months earlier, I had somehow talked Carrie into walking that Camino with the whole family. We chose the Camino Inglés, starting in Ferrol and walking roughly 80 miles to Santiago de Compostela.

It turns out sweet vermouth over ice is very popular in Galicia, and it turns out to be very good. Until that trip, I had only thought of sweet vermouth as something you put into Manhattans. I learned otherwise along our scallop-shell-lined path to Santiago.

Funny enough, that awkward first evening in Ferrol was about the only Albariño I clearly remembered drinking on the entire trip. I asked Carrie if she remembered any others.

Of course she did.

“We had that one with the butterfly label the night you made the tortilla de Betanzos, when we stayed in the apartment with the atrium.”

I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about, so I went digging through the photo roll. And there it was: the butterfly wine, Doña Luci. I remembered the label, but not really what the wine was like. Maybe I was just tired after another long day of walking.

I also found a photo of a bottle of Condes de Albarei sitting next to a plate of blistered Padrón peppers that I apparently cooked too.

Almost a Local

All five of us eventually made it to Santiago and received our certificates for having completed a Camino. We celebrated at a busy outdoor café and, by this point, I had learned something about Galicia. So when the waiter came over, I confidently ordered a Martini.

Finally, I was fitting in!

He answered me in English: “Are you sure you don’t want Lodeiros?”

Apparently, Santiago de Compostela has its own local vermouth. Just when I thought I had figured things out, Galicia humbled me one more time.

We have plans to go back and walk the Portuguese route.

And yes, taste some more Albariño.

Josh Bendick
Co-winemaker