Pure Magic in a Bottle from Galia
Very few wines can bring us to a dead stop in this business. We want to bring you the best juice made on the planet, we want to be able to tell you what makes it the best, and we want to be able to tell you why it matters. So we sip and we spit and we occasionally swill, but we almost never stop, because as good as the last one was there is another great bottle out there we’re already impatient to get to know.
I stopped on Galia.
The wine is pure magic, and every bottle has 750 milliliters of answers to all the questions I’ve ever been asked about this job. Why do I love wine? What makes a wine elite? What is the difference between the sound and the noise? Galia is the passion project of Jerome Bougnaud and comes from the Castilla y Leon region of Spain, which begins to explain the complexity of these wines. The french notion of terroir has always meant the sense of place in the glass, but can be limited to the soil the vine came from and the weather it experienced in a particular vintage—or, it can be seen as the entire geography, historical and otherwise, of a region taken by a vigneron and made into an experience. Castilla y Leon is a land that has seen Roman and Muslim and Catholic rule, has seen El Cid ride into battle and Miguel de Cervantes dream of windmills. This history of multitudes is as clear in Galia’s final product as in any text.
Jerome’s elite-level CV and nomadic interests certainly help as well. Born in Cognac, in the north of France, Jerome represents the fourth generation of winemakers in his family. Trained in Bordeaux in oenology, it’s hard to miss the French influence on his wine, but his resume is mostly written in Spanish. Making his name first working alongside Peter Sissek of Pingus as a viticulturist, then, along with Sissek, helping found Quinta Sardonia in 1998, Bougnaud is often referenced for his command and connection to the land and the soils.
This connection is most obvious in the “Villages” bottling, a rhapsodic melange from many small sites that only amount to a couple of hectares, spread all across the area surrounding the cities of Valliodad and Aranda de Duero. With varied soils and elevations and microclimates, this mix of sources is the stated dream of every winemaker I’ve ever talked to. Combining the dramatic site specificity of each plot with a talented touch in blending results in a product that is at once a striking portrait of regionality as well as a rounded, well-formed whole.
Bougnaud spent days wandering the area, and countless hours more pouring over satellite images, finding these small, “locals-only” plots that had been forgotten and left (often literally) by the wayside. These plots are old, some predate the phylloxera blight that struck Europe's vines at the end of the 19th century (thanks, America), and were likely to be ripped up for development if Bougnaud hadn’t seen their value and worth through this ridiculous effort.
The wine itself is worthy of every effort Bougnaud made, dusty and herbaceous, with mesquite tones pushing all over the sage and dark blue fruit. It’s a rare bottle that is great on its own or with a hearty meal. The body builds through the palette and fades wonderfully. It’s been one of my go to bottles to give my regular customers and it will continue to be so until I can’t find anymore.
If the “Villages” blend is great, the “El Dean,” is incredible. One of the greatest wines I tasted this year and firmly in place in my own personal pantheon, the Dean takes the dark brooding fruit of the village blend and pushes the floral tones out and along the incredibly wound center patch that is just hinting at the potential this wine will have in a decade. The depth of flavor in this wine is as striking a feature as I’ve ever tasted in a bottle of juice. I don’t mind saying I think this is one of the top sleeper wines in the world right now, and if I see this on top-rated releases in a decade from now I won’t be the least surprised.
Lastly, the granddaddy of the lot is “Clos Santuy.” Made from a single plot inside the village of Piquera de San Esteban, this is serious, serious wine, that needs a decade, wants two, and might just go for three. All of the forward character in “Village” and “El Dean” is still there, but with a savory, umami spice that frames the whole, and an acid and tannic profile built for the long haul.
Every wine I’ve had from this project has been phenomenal, and you should be drinking them now or putting them away for later—but you should be drinking Galia at some point. As much as he is a known quantity in Spain, Bougnaud is a winemaking talent we will keep our eyes on here, the same way we do anybody making wine this good at K&L. I don’t wax poetic on every wine like this, I promise, it’s just that when the juice is this good with this kind of story behind it, I can’t help but be reminded why I love working in this industry.
- Chris DePaoli