Adega do Vimbio

In 2012, after 10 years working abroad, Biology and Environmental Science graduates Martin Crusat and Patricia Elola decided to return home to their family vineyards. Vimbio was the name of their first wine, it's a Gallego word for willow, which has long flexible canes, traditionally used to tie back vines. It also represents their promise to work sustainably, in a hands-on way in partnership with nature, in their minds the only possible way to do things. Martin's family bought the farm, in the lower reaches of the Miño Valley just before the border with Portugal, in 1985. His father Tito planted 2.5ha of vines across a set of three neighbouring plots - Casendo, Veque and O Gaiteiro. He mostly planted Albariño, with some Caiño Blanco and a little Loureiro, on a mixture of schist, clay and colluvial boulder soils. They left the Rías Baixas DO in 2020, giving themselves freedom to work in a low intervention way which better expresses the terroir. Cover crops help to foster a thriving ecosystem in the vineyards, which translates to a bright energy in their wines.