Pequena Adega Romana
Valdeorras, Galicia, Spain
Roman singer-songwriter Francesco Testa was pulled into the world of natural wine over a decade ago while he was completing his Italian sommelier certification courses. During his tours and surfing trips, he would frequently visit and stay with winemakers in Spain and Portugal to learn more about winemaking.
While surfing through Galicia, Testa made a research and development pit stop in Valdeorras, and his heart was feeling too full to bid a farewell. Off the bat, he found a job working in the cellar and in the vineyards with Nacho Gonzalez at La Perdida.
After feeling like he was starting to get the hang of it, Testa located and bought a few Juan Padilla-crafted tinajas (amphorae) and started to make his own cuvées in test batches, which further inspired him to seek out and adopt old and abandoned vineyards.
Pequena Adega Romana wines are made from 0.4 hectares of native grape varieties from 60-70 year old albarello bush-trained vines at around 600 masl. Garnacha Tintorera, Treixadura and Mencia play their parts, but Godello is certainly the star of the show; it's used in 3/4 of his wines and is always macerated on the skins for 9 months. The other grapes are always directly pressed after harvest and co-fermented with the Godello grape skins and wine.
Since the wines are made in a cold and naturally temperature stable underground cave, the fermentation can take upwards of 35 days and invites development of flor on top of the grape skin cap. Frank's precise attention to removing grapes with rot or acetic aromas during harvest assists him in crafting these excellent unfiltered wines without adding any sulphur or other oenological additives at any time.
This 2021 vintage is the 4th official production, and there were only 1,500 bottles made total, and the USA is the only country besides Italy and Spain where you can find these wines.