Xabi Seoane could well be the archetype of the new small Galician producer. He aims to bring back the fazenda, the self-contained family farm cultivating its own produce. It is also a tribute to his grandfather who, upon his return from Switzerland, kept this concept alive. “I want to show the essence of a territory where things are real and I want live quietly with the natural resources the area has to offer,” explains Seoane. That's why he plans to produce, as well as wine, honey, vinegar and marc from the wine’s pomace.
He tends four hectares bought by his father in O Pacio, an abandoned hamlet in Carracedo, in the village of A Peroxa (this is part of the Chantada subarea). Mencía and some Merenzao were planted in 2002 and the first wine, a red Mencía, was released in the 2004 vintage.
When Xabi took over the project in the early 2010s he decided to recover the grape varieties from northwest Spain in order to reconnect with the historic, multi-varietal vineyard of 200 or 300 years ago. He started to re-graft part of the Mencía with Brancellao and then with Caíño and cuttings provided by terroir-driven producers in Galicia: Espadeiro from Xurxo Alba (Albamar, Rías Baixas), Loureira and Sousón from Cume do Avia (Ribeiro) or Dona Branca from José Luis Mateo (Quinta da Muradella, Monterrei). His adventurous spirit and the exploration of indigenous varieties with varietal wines led him to quit the appellation, but when the rules changed and most of these grapes were authorised, the wines adopted again the seal of DO Ribeira Sacra in the 2019 vintage.
With vineyards facing the Miño river, just a few kilometres from its confluence with the Sil and the Búbal river in the area called Os Tres Ríos (The Three Rivers), Seoane points out that the influence in Prádio of the Sil is stronger than that of the Miño compared with the rest of Chantada. Soils are mainly granite with 30% of schist. Xabi admits that fungi make organic growing really difficult but he believes that focusing on soils could help vines to improve their resistance to disease.
Seoane works only with his own grapes. Production barely stands at 20,000 bottles. Grape varieties are fermented separately in small, granite open vats inspired on the ancient stone winepresses. No yeasts are added, but they use a small batch of whole clusters to start fermentation. The rest of the grapes are destemmed. Initially, the red wines underwent skin contact for about seven days, but as the vineyards have matured, the maceration period has been extended to two or even three weeks post-fermentation. After trying various vessels, Seoane decided in favour of French oak.
The wines
The entry-level wine is a fresh, spicy Mencía (8,000 bottles, €17), but the flagship is Pacio (around 4,000 bottles, €38), a blend of the best batches of red varieties selected to express the specific terroir of O Pacio, a particular site in the parish of Carracedo. This same site also produces a white cuvée (2,000 bottles, €40), usually from Dona Blanca and Loureiro.
The long-term ambition is to craft limited releases from other parishes too.
Released discreetly and in limited quantities, Seoane has been quietly producing small lots of single-varietal wines, in particular Brancellao and Merenzao. This has enabled him to gain a better understanding of their behaviour and development over time.
Reds stand out for their elegance, purity of expression and evolution in bottle as we experienced at a recent vertical tasting of the vintages 2014 to 2018 of Pacio, Prádio Merenzao and Prádio Brancellao.