From the lowest yielding old vines, comprised of mostly Treixadura, planted on steep granite hillsides. Escolma means “selection” in Gallego. This top cuvée is only produced in excellent vintages, it was wild yeast fermented in a variety of sizes of French oak barrels, raised on the lees for 12 months, and further aged in the bottle for 36 months.

Luis Rodriguez has been quietly crafting remarkable Ribeiro wines since 1988. From the beginning, Luis’s aim has been to showcase the enormous potential for the once nearly extinct native grapes to produce distinctive and age-worthy wines. Over time, Luis has accumulated just under 6 hectares scattered over nearly 200 micro-plots primarily located in the town of Arnoia, a village with some of the steepest south-facing vineyards in Ribeiro. Here the soils are decomposed granite with sandy topsoil. Luis’s vines range from 10 to 50 years old, with many of them being planted by Luis himself. Having grown up in the village of Arnoia and by focusing his work there, Luis knows where the good vineyards are located. He has been steadily converting these plots from the bulk wine grapes Palomino and Garnacha Tintorera (Alicante Bouchet) to the native Treixadura, Lado, and Ferrol, to just name a few. His philosophy in the vineyard is to maintain balance. His approach to farming can be described as lutte raisonée, with no herbicides used ever, and treatments applied only if absolutely necessary, and never for a month before the harvest to help preserve the native yeasts existent on the grapes that help start fermentation.