2019 Bernabeleva Madrid Cantocuerdas Albillo

Most white wines from a warm vintage come out heavy. The 2019 Cantocuerdas came out at just 11.9% alcohol. That's the magic of this site. Cantocuerdas is home to Bernabeleva's original plantings, high in the granite country of the Sierra de Gredos, west of Madrid. Its Albillo Real vines are around 90 years old, rooted in sandy, granite-rich soils and farmed organically. Old vines and altitude keep the grapes fresh even when summer turns hot. The same vineyard also gives the estate its old-vine Moscatel, a sign of how highly the family rates this ground. Albillo is the quiet achiever of Madrid's revived white wine scene. Here it has room to show what it can do. The 2019 earned a 92-point score from Gutiérrez. He found no orange-wine character, no deep colour and no trace of oak. Just a wine that is "pure and delineated, tasty and long". For anyone curious about Spain's new wave of mountain whites, this is a bottle worth knowing.