The young, fruit-driven and unoaked 2019 Guitian showcases the Godello grape on their slate soils at high altitude with notes of white flowers and fruit, quite delicate and subtle. Despite its youth, the wine is harmonious and might feel a little reductive, but it's nothing compared with the wines from yesteryear. It has a round palate and a soft texture, and it's balanced and elegant, with a faint bitter note in the finish that is dry and long. This fermented with indigenous yeasts and matured in tank until bottling. There are 90,000 bottles of this wine. It was bottled in March 2020. To show the aging potential of the variety and of this wine, they offer a library release after at least 50 months in bottle; right now, the vintage on sale is the 2014.

The young, fruit-driven and unoaked 2016 Guitian wants to show the character of the Godello grape on their slate soils—very floral, with some white fruit and subtle elegance. The palate is terribly tasty, with some mineral, almost saline notes. 2016 was a low yielding vintage because of mildew problems and hail that resulted in very good ripeness and a late harvest. It was a short crop, with only 45,000 bottles, when in other years they have done 80,000.

The unoaked 2014 Guitian is pure Godello, easily distinguishable by its yellow art deco label. The nose shows very good freshness and hints at a certain lightness. The palate shows good concentration and nice balance. Straightforward, easy to drink. This represents the volume of the production with some 80,000 bottles.

Easy to spot by its yellow label, the 2013 Guitian is a fresh, unoaked white. This young bottling always suffers from some sulfur notes when young, which probably helps in the long term. There are aromas of white fruit, some melon and hints of tropical notes. The palate is light to medium-bodied but quite supple, with a bittersweet final sensation. 6,000 bottles were produced.

The young, unoaked 2012 Guitian, produced from 30-year-old Godello vines grown on slate soils on the La Tapada property belonging to the family, shows a bright, pale yellow color, with an herbaceous fresh nose redolent of fennel, citric fruit (grapefruit), and a touch of minerality. The medium-bodied palate is quite intense, delineated and clean, with pungent flavors and a salty/mineral finish. Clean, well made, pleasant and easy to drink. Year in, year out, one reference for Godello and Valdeorras at an unbeatable price. 70,000 bottles produced. Experience shows that this unoaked Godello ages well in the bottle. Drink 2013-2017. The Guitian Velasco family planted a 10-hectare Godello vineyard in the village of Rubia in 1989 on their property called La Tapada. They built their winery in 1993 and soon, with the help of the enological team of Jose Hidalgo and Ana Martin and their unusual art deco labels, were the first to put Valdeorras and Godello in the minds of Spanish wine aficionados. Soon, their wines were reaching the highest scores in the local wine guides and everybody was talking about them. They were the first to show the aging potential of Godello, both when raised in wood or completely unoaked. Their wines inspired lots of the younger producers to explore the appellation and the grape. Valdeorras owes a lot to the Guitian family. Nowadays, they produce 100,000 bottles per year. They are not terribly experimental and have a stable range of unoaked, barrel-fermented and aged-on-its-lees Godellos. Through the years, they vinified a blanc de noirs with Merenzao grapes (which is nothing other than Bastardo or Trousseau from Jura) sourced from a small grower, but the vineyard that provided the grapes was ripped up by the owner. They also tried fermenting a small lot of Godello in acacia wood barrels, a wine I tried in this tasting and liked quite a lot. All their wines evolve in bottle for a few years, so there’s no rush to drink the latest vintage. In fact, I’m always happy to find some of their older vintages on restaurant lists.