10 Names to Know in Galician Wine

Galicia is one of Spain’s most exciting wine regions and wine lovers are spoiled with all the options available to them. Located in Spain’s Atlantic Northwest, Galician wines are known for their freshness, with lots of crisp acidity and citrus flavors in the white wines and crunchy red fruit and floral aromas in the reds. Here are ten names to look for on your next trip to the wine shop.

1. Luis Anxo Rodríguez Vásquez 

Luis Anxo Rodríguez Vázquez, or simply Luis Anxo, as everyone calls him, is one of a handful of winemakers responsible for Ribeiro’s reawakening to quality in the late 20th century. In 1984, he took over the family winery in Ribeiro’s Arnoia Valley and began to piece together vineyards, pulling up the palomino and garnacha that were planted there to grow bulk grapes and replanting them to native varieties like treixadura and lado. His wines quickly established him as a reference point for quality in a region that at the time was dominated by cheap, bulk white and red wines. He has become a champion of Galicia’s native grapes and a model of quality winemaking to follow.

2. Xurxo Alba - Bodegas Albamar

 Xurxo Alba combined his family name with the most important geographical feature in his wines (the sea) and named his winery Bodegas Albamar. Alba is a young, energetic vigneron whose wines also brim with vigor. He turned his family’s traditional tavern into a professional winery which has quickly become known as one of Rías Baixas’ most exciting projects of the 21st century. Alba, whose nickname is “El Capitán”, is charting a new course for Rías Baixas. His philosophy is “maximum respect,” and he tries to incorporate organic farming wherever he can, while recognizing the difficulties of farming in Spain’s wettest wine region. He experiments with parcelaire Albariño wines as well as some very interesting red wines from indigenous red grapes like caíño and espadeiro.

3. Eulogio Pomares - Bodegas Zárate

Seventh generation Eulogio Pomares is the face of Bodegas Zárate, a pioneer of quality Albariño and an original founding winery of DO Rías Baixas. Zárate’s great-uncle founded the Albariño Festival in the 1950s, which is arguably responsible for the grape’s resurgence. Today, Pomares farms about 10 hectares and is known as one of the region’s top winemakers. He makes soulful, complex Albariño wines that incorporate thoughtful wood and lees aging. Pomares was among the first to resurrect red winemaking in Rías Baixas and today he makes a small amount of red wines from the region’s traditional red grapes.

4. José Luis Mateo - Quinta da Muradella

Jose Luis Mateo is arguably one of Galicia’s greatest growers and winemakers. He’s located in Monterrei, Galicia’s smallest wine region. In his unassuming concrete winery in Verín, a few miles from the Portuguese border, he crafts transcendent wines that have a cult following. After spending most of his upbringing helping in the vineyard and making wine to sell in the family tavern, he went to Madrid for a brief stint at university. Once there, he quickly decided to return to Verín and dedicate himself full-time to winemaking. His wines eventually became known in Galicia and all over Spain as examples of soulful expressions of the marriage between native grapes and terroir.

5. Manuel Méndez - Do Ferreiro

Gerardo Méndez was part of the original group of 14 pioneering growers who formed the Denominación de Origen Rías Baixas in 1988. Originally from a family of blacksmiths (Ferreiro = blacksmith in the Galician language), he named his now-iconic wine Do Ferreiro, “From the Blacksmith”. In 2015, Gerardo’s son Manuel Méndez took over as winemaker. The younger Méndez is responsible for taking care of the iconic Cepas Vellas vineyard, planted with 200+ year-old prephylloxera vines, as well as the many plots he farms around Meaño. Méndez has a boundless curiosity and a belief that Rías Baixas has the potential to be on par with the greatest white wine terroirs of the world, which has led him to isolate and vinify single-vineyard and single-soil-type sites.

6. Rodrigo Méndez - Forjas del Salnés

Manuel Méndez’s cousin Rodrigo ‘Rodri’ Méndez has made a name for himself as one of Rías Baixas’ top winemakers, both through his vibrant Albariño wines and his pioneering work on red grape varieties. Méndez began making wine in the early 2000s, and named his project Forjas del Salnés (Forges of the Salnés) after the ironworks run by his grandfather Francisco Méndez, who founded Do Ferreiro with Rodri’s uncle Gerardo Méndez. Rodri Méndez also works with some very old, prephylloxera vineyards and was the first to begin experimenting with making red wine in a region that to this day produces 99% white wines. He enlisted star winemaker Raúl Pérez, who is helping him tease out the expressions of grapes like Caíño Tinto with whole cluster fermentation, light extraction, extended time in used oak, and a focus on varietal aromas.

7. Rafael Palacios

Rafael ‘Rafa’ Palacios has put Godello from Valdeorras on the global map. After growing up in the family winery in Rioja, Palacios followed in the footsteps of his brother Álvaro and struck out on his own, eventually settling in Valdeorras, where he has been making wine since 2004. Palacios has been making great Godello wines for a long time, but he rocketed to even more fame when his ‘Sorte O Soro’ got a perfect 100 point score from Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate in 2020, giving it unicorn status. Palacios is an example of the fact that Galicia is very attractive to winemakers from other regions for it.

8. Fernando González - Adega Algueira

Fernando González has been making wine in Galicia’s Ribeira Sacra region since 1979, when he fell in love with a vineyard belonging to his wife Ana Delia Pérez’s family. He named his winery after his wife’s family home: Casa Algueira, which in the Galician language means “the place where friends gather to enjoy.” Adega Algueira was one of the founding wineries of DO Ribeira Sacra in 1996 and Fernando later joined forces with renowned Spanish winemaker Raúl Pérez to continue refining his winemaking. Fernando considers himself a sort of spokesperson for the Ribeira Sacra—he’s seen it through hard times, when almost no one lived there and vineyards were abandoned and he’s seen its modern renaissance. Algueira’s wines are a benchmark for the region and are partly responsible for Ribeira Sacra’s moden rise to (relative) recognition on the global wine scale.

9. Pedro Rodríguez - Adegas Guímaro

Pedro Rodríguez is the owner and winemaker of Adegas Guímaro, one of the most well-known wineries in Ribeira Sacra. His family were founding members of DO Ribeira Sacra in 1996 and named their winery Guímaro (rebel, in Galician) after a popular nickname for Pedro’s grandfather. Pedro took over in 2001 and after meeting Raúl Pérez he incorporated new techniques like whole-cluster fermentation and aging wines in foudres. His single parcels are well worth seeking out for their affordability and potential for aging.

10. Envínate

The four friends behind this now-iconic winemaking team met while studying winemaking at the University of Alicante. They founded a project called Envínate (“Wine Yourself”) and set out to make wines from their home regions. Alfonso Torrente, the resident Galician of the group, introduced the group to Ribeira Sacra, where they make a wine called ‘Lousas’ after the Galician name for slate. They now make a village wine and two single-vineyard reds.

Explore Galicia’s Winemaking Mastery

Galician winemaking is more than just a craft. It’s a centuries-old tradition that blends skill, passion and a deep connection to the land. Shaped by the region’s rugged terrain and Atlantic influences, each bottle tells a story of dedication and expertise.

Want to explore deeper into the passion of Galician winemakers? Explore our Galicia Producer Guide below.