100% Albariño

Food pairings: Shellfish, oysters, ceviche and grilled fish.

Winemaking: The grapes are picked by hand into small baskets, sorted at the winery and given a 12-hour cold soak before pressing, which helps prevent oxidation and lets the team use less SO2. Destemmed and whole-cluster fruit is pressed in a pneumatic press. About a quarter of the wine ferments in 500- and 600-liter French oak puncheons and demi-muids (second use up to 12 vintages old) and the rest in stainless steel. It then ages on its lees in the same vessels, stirred every two weeks.

Vineyards and terroir: About 85% of the fruit comes from the Salnés Valley, with 10% from Condado do Tea and 5% from Ribeira do Ulla. The dry-farmed vines, planted between 1975 and 2001, are trained on traditional granite pergolas and tended entirely by hand on acidic, sandy alluvial soils from decomposed granite. The climate is Atlantic: humid for most of the year, with warm summers. The winery sits in the village of Zamar, overlooking the Ría de Arousa near Vilagarcía de Arousa.

Family and history: Jorge Ordóñez first travelled to Rías Baixas before the D.O. officially existed. In the early 1990s he became the first exporter of Albariño, introducing it to the United States in 1991. Bodegas La Caña is named for the straw-like cañas, the reeds that line the shores of the Atlantic inlets carved into Galicia's granite coast. Its aim is a traditional, serious Albariño in the style of the artisan wines Ordóñez found on his first visits.

In the pictures: Bodegas La Caña vineyards beside the ría; pergola-trained Albariño vines; and vines near the Atlantic coast. Photographs courtesy of Jorge Ordóñez Selections.