Just 15 minutes inland from Cambados, in Meaño, is the small family estate of Gerardo Méndez. Here, in a tiny, traditional Pazo sheltered from the Atlantic fogs and benefiting from protected sunshine, on 5 hectares of vines that are so old that nobody locally can remember when they were not there, Gerardo and his daughter Encarna make limited quantities of just 2 wines: the straightforward Albariño do Ferreiro - which is vibrantly lemony on the surface but beneath which lurks a savoury, energetic, layered appley base; and the awesome, mouth-filling Cepas Vellas ('old vine'), made from a single plot of un-grafted vines that are over 200 years old.
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