Tricó is the word used in some small villages in Galicia to refer to the unexpected child born years after the elder siblings. Founder José Antonio López formerly worked with leading wineries in the Denomination such as Morgadío or Lusco. His third project in Rías Baixas has a personal, intimate approach. The Tricó label (€14.5), launched with the 2007 vintage, features a drawing that appeared on his mother's school notebook in the hamlet of Cequeliños (Pontevedra).
This Albariño comes from 10 hectares of vines in the Condado subzone (the furthest inland in the appellation). Soils are poor -decomposed granite and sand- and grape yields moderate taking into account the lush nature of this rainy, Atlantic region. José Antonio López aims to pick around 6,000 to 7,000 kilos per hectare – with a limit set at 8,000 kilos. This is, he reckons, the only way to obtain the necessary concentration to produce a wine with personality and capable of developing in the bottle.
Longer contact with the lees and extended bottle aging are trademarks of this wine. The wine rests in stainless steel tanks with its lees for a year and it is bottled towards July or August, where it spends another year before reaching the market.
With the 2010 vintage, the winery launched two new Albariños. Tabla de Sumar, cheaper than Tricó, is meant to be sold by the glass in bars and restaurants; it is bottled at about the same time as Tricó but it is marketed earlier. The second label, Nicolás de Tricó (around €22 and just 2,500 bottles) is a single vineyard Albariño which has higher alcohol levels than usual and is kept in a separate deposit. It shows extreme concentration, volume and ripeness.
