Placet Valtomelloso 2018

Plácet Valtomelloso is a limited production organic white wine from Rioja Baja, made from the indigenous Spanish Viura grape variety. Plácet, meaning “consent,” is the only white wine made by famed Spanish winemaker Alvaro Palacios . The harvest is manual and fermentation is carried out by native yeasts in large oval wooden barrels. Then, the wine will be aged for 11 months on fine lees in 2000 liter tuns. The wine demonstrates a beautiful straw gold color and is expressed with attractive aromas of orange blossoms , juicy pears , melon , golden baked apples , vanilla and freshly baked brioche . Well-bodied, with perfectly balanced acidity, this wine also contains beautiful flavors of white peaches , acacia honey , chamomile and anise as well as subtle mineral notes. Plácet is an exceptional wine which, according to Alvaro Palacios, has a 'wonderful depth and purity'.

The history of wine in Spain is so old that no one really knows who brought the first vines to the region. When the Phoenicians arrived some 3,000 years ago and founded the present-day cities of Cádiz and Jerez, viticulture was well established and Spanish wines were widely marketed throughout the Mediterranean and North Africa. You could say that Spain is a wine miracle. After years spent away from the world of fine wines, she is today a major player. Investment and ambition in the vineyards and cellars results in increasingly rich and complex (often very alcoholic) and spicy reds which are increasingly appreciated by international consumers. Proud to have more land devoted to vines than any other country, Spain is only beginning to capitalize on this resource consistently. Spain is an anarchic tangle of regions and sub-regions, just as its landscape is an anarchic tangle of incredibly raw landscapes. A glance at a map reveals the climatic diversity among Spain's many wine regions, from the soggy green vineyards of Galicia on the northern Atlantic coast to the toasty vineyards of southeastern the Mediterranean. Spain's saving grace, in terms of viticulture, is the average altitude of its vineyards, above 600 meters. A large part of Spanish vineyards therefore manage to produce grapes of good color and acidity simply because night temperatures are relatively low and the grapes do not ripen until the end of a sufficiently long growing period. But there is real treasure to be found for those willing to dig and, now that a class of connoisseurs has developed in Spain, all manner of ambitious investors have done their part to change the image of Spanish wine . Today, a new generation of winemakers has quietly begun making spectacular wines and experimenting with grape varieties that would have been unthinkable just a short time ago. Wine remains an important commodity and is an integral part of Spanish culture.