The white 2016 Muradella Blanco is produced exclusively with Treixadura planted 20 years ago on clay soils rich in iron. Part of the volume fermented in stainless steel, part in oak foudre, and it was kept with the lees for 12 months. This is super austere and super mineral, all about the soil. I wouldn't touch this for a few years, as I believe it's going to bloom in bottle. It's superb and austere right now—cool, mineral, vertical and sharp, sharper than the 2015. It has more in common with the Matador but without the depth of the old vines. 2,300 bottles were filled in May 2018.

The white 2012 Muradella is pure Treixadura from 15 year old vines on clay and iron soils plus some grapes selected from older (25-30 years) vines on sandy granite soils with showy aromas of exotic spices, fennel, aniseed and mainly soil notes. It has a Chablis-like minerality, hinting on being saline. As with all of José Luis Mateo's wines, this was fermented with indigenous yeasts in stainless steel and 500-liter barrels and matured in contact with the lees for nine months before being assembled and aged for a further 12 months in stainless steel before being bottled unfiltered. It has intense, piercing flavors, high pitched, very fresh and again mineral with some austere, herbal and spicy tones. This is simply superb. Ready to drink or to slowly develop in bottle. A pure, clean, mineral white at the quality helm of Galicia. 2,600 bottles were filled

The 2010 Muradella is produced from Treixadura from 14-year-old vines blended with some white grapes cherry-picked from old vines that are found intermixed in the old vineyards. Part of the grapes are destemmed, and one-third of the wine is aged in 500-liter barrels. The wine shows a bright yellow color, and a nose that is eminently mineral, with some citric, herbal-balsamic notes that could make you think of Chablis. The medium-bodied palate shows a very clean, pure wine, with great length and balanced acidity. 2,600 bottles were made. A superb effort. Bravo! Drink 2014-2018. Quinta da Muradella was created in 1993 by Jose Luis Mateo with 15 hectares of owned vineyards in different zones of the Monterrei appellation, some on the valley floor, some on the slopes and some others in the mountain zones where some vineyards reach 100 years of age. He works 20 different plots. All his vineyards are organically certified. He makes a total of 40,000 bottles per year, and experiments with different grapes, different zones, fermenting and aging vessels (wood, stainless steel, concrete) trying to understand the region and the grapes and what works best. Sometimes it’s difficult to understand the process he uses to make some of the wines, and you’ll see that he moves the wines from inox to barrel, from cement to whatever, in what seems to be quite a complicated operation. Some things work and some don’t. He makes varietal wines to examine the different grapes and their potential, he tries different blends, and his ultimate idea is to identify the ideal blend of ancient varieties, the ones that were planted in the region before phyloxera, not only to make the wine, but to plant those varieties already mixed in the vineyard. His collection of wines is completely different from the rest of the wines produced in the appellation. If you ever visit Verin, which has a beautiful old town center and an impressive castle, you should make sure you visit the Mateo family’s bar, A Canteira (the name comes from their father who was a canteiro, a stone mason), where they serve their own house wine, both white and red, made by Jose Luis. It is the best house wine I’ve ever tried in a restaurant. The locals just don’t know how lucky they are. About the person himself, Jose Luis Mateo is extremely humble, a quality I find in the best people across different professions – very generous with his time and everything else. He’s passionate about what he’s doing, and he considers his work a long-term project to bring value and quality to the wines of his region, “hoping that someone will take over and continue the things that I’m doing,” he said. When I asked him what he’d change if he could start again he was very clear. “I’d focus on the mountain vineyards,” he told me. I asked what if it had to be somewhere else in Galicia? “To me the place would be Ribeiro.” And now for something completely different! Jose Luis has been making a range of varietal red wines that he was reluctant to show, since quantities are sometimes tiny, but I found some of them too good not to talk about them; some are also non-DO wines declassified to the Vino de Mesa category. Importer: Ole Imports. New Rochelle, NY; tel. (914) 740-4724

The 2009 Muradella Blanco is 100% Dona Blanca that was vinified with 50% whole clusters and 50% whole berries with no stems. Fermentation was finished in seasoned 500-liter French oak where the wine remained for 8 months before decanting it into stainless steel for an additional 4 months. It was then bottled without filtration. Unfortunately, despite these elaborate efforts, the resulting wine is reticent aromatically and has relatively little flavor interest. Another weaker effort that I was unable to recommend, the 2008 Gorvia Blanco, was also made from 100% Dona Blanco so my tentative conclusion, given the skill of the vignerons associated with the project, is that the grape simply lacks much in the way of varietal character. Quinta da Muradella, located in the town of Verin in the Monterrei DO, is a garage winery where proprietor Jose Luis Mateo and Raul Perez make wine from 34 unique, certified organic, parcels. A principal purpose of the project is to relate the history of the region through the wines. That fascinating story goes beyond the bounds of this report but the importer can provide more detailed information to those interested. Importer: Ole Imports, New Rochelle, NY; www.oleimports.com