At Manuel Moldes' house, wine had always been made for their own consumption but in 2009 Chicho, as everyone calls him, decided to take his passion and hobby a little further and launched Bodegas Fulcro, a garage project (literally) focused on making fresh terroir wines from the Salnés Valley. He keeps a low profile and produces just 30,000 bottles —he prefers to expand slowly and make only wines that he likes— but he is undoubtedly one of the names to bear in mind in the area.
Helped in his beginnings by Rodri Méndez (Forjas del Salnés), Moldes produces two reds and three albariños from his small vineyards near the sea in the vicinity of Meaño and Sanxenxo.
A Pedreira (17,000 bottles, €11.90) is his flagship wine. It comes from a 37-year-old vineyard of the same name with granite soils with abundant quartz and mica and from two other plots in the vicinity of A Pedreira where they have not worked the soil for seven years. Fermented with indigenous yeasts in stainless steel and 25-30% in used barrels (45% of the wine from the 2019 vintage is aged in oak), this 100% Albariño does not do malolactic fermentation and remains with its lees for five months achieving great balance, fantastic acidity and enveloping texture.
Fulcro (4,000 bottles, €16.90) comes from a 45-67 year old vineyard called A Xesteira, 50 metres from an ancient tin mine, with xisto soils (highly decomposed red slate). This 100% Albariño is fermented with indigenous yeasts and aged in seasoned 500- and 700-litre barrels for 10-12 months. As it does not undergo malolactic fermentation, this wine has distinct acidity and a crunchy texture balanced by a deep, full palate.
With Pescuda (5,000 bottles, €10.90), his most inexpensive wine and a sort of R&D for the rest of his wines, Moldes gives free rein to his desire to work with different soils, in this case schist, clay and sand, and vessels. To make this wine, which is outside the DO Rías Baixas, Moldes combines fermentation and ageing in stainless steel (40%) and new oak to season it for his other cuvées (60%, between four and six months, depending on the vintage). As in the rest of his whites, A Pescuda does not undergo malolactic fermentation in search of a sharper and fresher expression of Albariño, achieving a range of whites that evolve notably in the bottle.
Moldes has produced three vintages (the current one is 2016) of his red A Pescuda (1.300 bottles, €12,25) from old vineyards with clay sandy soils and some slate in Bierzo. It is a fresh wine with good aromatic intensity that blends Mencía from Valtuille de Abajo and Alicante Bouschet from Corullón which are fermented and aged in stainless steel tanks and oak barrels.
In the 2015 vintage he decided to try his luck and make a red wine in his region. Although it was not released until the 2016 vintage, Aliaxe (1,800 bottles, €21.90), is a blend of 60% Caiño, 20% Espadeiro and 20% Loureiro aged for 12 months in two seasoned 300-litre French oak barrels. Since the 2017 vintage, the wine is in the DO (in 2016, as the wine didn't comply with the appellation's organoleptic regulations, Moldes called the wine Aliaxe Furtivo).
His latest red wine, expected to be available soon, is the floral and outstandingly delicate Aliaxe Fabaiños, of which he stores two vintages in the cellar (2017 and 2018). It is a 100% Espadeiro from a 200+-year-old vineyard and its production is limited to 300 bottles. The wine is made in the same way as Aliaxe, but Moldes emphasises the "finesse" of the variety, which is even more remarkable due to the age of the vines. Moldes is using this Espadeiro clone to plant other vineyards like A Xesteira.
Together with his friends Rodri Méndez and Raúl Pérez, Moldes is working on a collection of three Albariño wines that are due to be released shortly. The three are born from a very special vineyard with old vines on clay soils protected by a two meters of sand. Moldes' wine, which will be called Nas Dunas and ferments in oak for 12 months, displays harmonious elegance, freshness and volume. Like the rest of his whites, it does not undergo malolactic fermentation.
Another vineyard he has take over recently is an Albariño plot with clay, mica and some degraded granite soils in Góndar, a few kilometres from the winery. Although the 2017 wine was "spectacular", according to Chicho, yields were low so it was blended in Pescuda, but in the future it will be released as A Cesteira. The 2019 vintage, still in the cellar and ageing in stainless steel tanks and seasoned wood, is full-bodied and has outstanding volume but without losing its acidity. Around 800 bottles will be released, but there is room for growth up to 4,000 bottles.
