Although Torres Family has been making Albariño Pazo das Bruxas in Rías Baixas since 2012, they purchased a historic property in 2017 in the village of Portas (Pontevedra), in the Salnés Valley subarea, with a view to produce a premium estate white wine.

Unlike the distinctive smallholding pattern of Galician vineyards, Pazo Torre Penelas is a 14th century property with six hectares under vine surrounded by stone walls. The estate has all the typical buildings found in these traditional country manors, such as a granary, a dovecote and a chapel, and now also a small wine cellar to produce a single white wine. Classified as a listed building, it once belonged to the family of the famous conquistador Ponce de León.

The sea is only eight kilometres away, so the Atlantic influence is strongly felt. The age of the Albariño vines ranges from 45 to 25 years old. Sand dominates, but there is great soil variability. Viña Alta, the highest part covering three hectares, has less sand with shallow soils and a high presence of granitic rock hence the water stress and the higher alcohol content. Slightly colder, Palomar is a transition area with 40 to 20 centimetres of sand that translates into good alcohol and acidity levels, while Capilla and El Hórreo feature deeper soils. However, the fact that that these two were planted with different clones of Albariño results in specific aromatic profiles. The first wine of the estate comes from a selection of grapes from these three plots.

To a great extent, the singularity of the project lies in the choice of fermenting and ageing material for the wine: granite egg-shaped tanks. Granite is the dominant rock in the region and was traditionally used to ferment local wines, either in old wine presses in the vineyards or those built at a later stage in the pazos.

Building modern granite containers was a challenge. The capacity, 675 litres, was determined by the size of the winery itself. And the egg-shaped design aims to enhance the stirring of the lees. Judging by the work carried out so far, the porosity of granite seems to be on a par with oak, but unlike wood, it remains unchanged over time. Perhaps the most obvious feature of the wine is its saline character and the dominance of herbal over fruit notes. The first vintage of Blanco Granito (€42 in Spain) is 2019.