Albariño is a creature of this particular climate and is both shaped by the environment and also reflects some of its chief characteristics. In fact there is quite a lot of both things – sun and rain – enough of each to allow the grapes to ripen but also to express their maritime nature. The Gallegos will tell you that they call Galicia “Galifornia” because of the sunny, hot summers and the beaches – but this place isn’t green and intensely verdant for nothing. This helps to control disease (mould and mildew) from the wet conditions. With granite posts and granite walls and wide spacing between rows, the trellises are designed to let air move as freely as possible. The Albariño grape dominates and is grown on a trellis system that uses, for its raw materials, that very Galician raw material – granite. Agriculture here, including grape-growing, is never far from the sea so everything in the region is somehow shaped by the maritime influence. The wines of Rias Baixas, like the people and the land itself, occupy their own very particular place in the world.
#Wine maps of rias baixas plus
Plus they have the best seafood in Spain. But they are warm and gregarious once they get to know you. The Gallegos (as they call themselves) are tough people, reflecting their agricultural and seafaring environment. Rias Baixas is part of Galicia and that means the people have a fiercely independent streak, with their own distinct language and culture. This is a land where the coastline is rugged and battered by the Atlantic Ocean and where people make a living as much from fishing fleets as from agriculture. Rias Baixas is much more like the north-eastern maritime states and provinces of the US and Canada or the coast of Ireland or Scotland. Located up on the north-west coast of the Iberian peninsula, Rias Baixas is nothing like the mountainous and dry interior or the long, curving Mediterranean coastal beaches that many of us picture in our minds when we think about Spain.
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In fact, Rias Baixas does have a distinctly other-worldly atmosphere.
![wine maps of rias baixas wine maps of rias baixas](https://socialsips.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Galicia-248x300.jpg)
Maybe it has something to do with the name, a name that immediately looks like it will be a tongue twister (pronounced “REE-ahs BI-shas” – once you’ve practiced a time or two it becomes quite fun to say). Still, it seems to me that Rias Baixas continues to maintain a slightly exotic and mysterious reputation.
![wine maps of rias baixas wine maps of rias baixas](https://www.tonymenechella.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Map.png)
The Albariños of this region have been winning over wine converts in large numbers for a couple of decades now. Rias Baixas is by no means a new player on the scene.