Bodegas Fulcro

Manuel Moldes (“Chicho”, to those who know him) hails from a family with generations-deep roots of grapegrowing in the heart of Rías Baixas’ esteemed Salnés Valley. His father, though in construction by trade and lacking formal training, began vinifying wine from the family’s own grapes in 1986. Chicho grew up in the vineyards, harvesting with his father and brother from the age of five and developing a fine-tuned early sensibility to the quality potential and stylistic opportunities (perhaps not fully exploited in that era) of Salnés Albariño. As he grew older, he developed friendships and traded countless bottles with some of the finest growers in both Rías Baixas and inland Galicia: Rodri Méndez (Forjas del Salnés) was a major influence, but Raúl Pérez, Pedro Rodríguez (Guímaro), and José Luis Mateo (Quinta da Muradella) also made an impact on Chicho. By 2009, he was ready to begin his own project: Bodegas Fulcro. He was to respect family tradition, but, guided by a palate honed on top contemporary white Burgundy, Champagne, and Riesling, he sought his own path on key stylistic matters, chiefly in his avoidance of malolactic fermentation and sensitive use of neutral oak.

Today, while he remains something of an insider’s secret in the United States, Chicho has risen to top stature in Europe, justifiably numbered among the very best contemporary growers in the Salnés. Working a small surface of a scant five hectares bolstered by approximately as much again in long-term contracts, he abides by the simple principles of honest manual work and maximum sensitivity in both vineyard and cellar in order to express the character of the different sites he works. Speaking of which: Chicho is the definitive producer in the zone of Sanxenxo, a lesser-known but compelling area of the Salnés. Dominated by the tree-capped, hundred-meter schistous outcrop of Monte Faro, Sanxenxo offers Chicho an unusually vibrant palette of expositions, altitudes and soils to play with, a marked contrast to the prevailing sea-level granitic sand further north in the better-explored environs of Cambados and Ribadumia.