“Lapola” White Ribeira Sacra 2021 – Dominio do Bibei

The grapes to produce the “Lapola” White Ribeira Sacra Dominio do Bibei were hand picked into 10kg boxes and sorted in the vineyard, with each vineyard parcel vinified separately. The fruit was cold settled for 24 hours prior to being pressed and racked. Fermentation using indigenous yeasts took place in a mix of six-hectolitre barrels, 12 and 24 hectolitre casks and seven hectolitre ovoid concrete tanks. The wine was then racked into a mixture of 600-litre French oak barrels and 1,200 and 2,400-litre Austrian oak foudres of various uses on fine lees. The second part of the ageing is performed in ovoid concrete tanks for natural stabilisation. The wine was aged for a total of 10 months before bottling.

Vines are grown at varying altitudes from 400 – 750 metres on sandy and clay soils, flecked with shale. The vines are aged between 14 and 100 years old. The region’s Atlantic climate, with an average annual rainfall of 700mm, mostly concentrated in the winter and spring months, helps retain freshness and acidity in the fruit. The summer and autumn are drier, with a large diurnal range.

Since his first vintage in 2001, Javier Dominguez’s Dominio do Bibei has been widely acknowledged as the driving force behind the emergence of quality wines in Spain’s historic Ribeira Sacra. In the late 1990s, Javier Dominguez family bought land in the Bibei valley, Ribeira’s most easterly sub-region, and today they own a 140 hectare estate, of which 45 hectares are planted with vines. Since then, he has worked tirelessly to revive the region and its indigenous vines, undertaking what is known locally as ‘heroic viticulture’. There are far easier places to make wine than in Ribeira Sacra. But Javier Dominguez, along with his consultant winemakers, Priorat’s Sara Pérez and René Barbier, are united in a common belief in this spectacular landscape, its ancient character and, most of all, its capacity to produce Spain’s most distinctive wines.