Cristina Blanco spent seven summers, from the age of 12, learning English in Ballybrack, Co Dublin. She returned recently to attend the National Off-Licence Association's (NOFLA) wine show in Dublin, at which Rias Baixas winery, Adegas Valmiñor, and its sister Ribera del Duero winery Ébano - she is sales director of both - picked up two of the major awards.
Blanco was born in the city of Vigo in Galicia, north-west Spain, 30 years ago. Some years ago she began working with the young team who had set up Adegas Valmiñor in 1997 to produce a version of Galicia's main wine, the bracing and aromatic Albariño. "They are like family to me now," she says. The company also operates as a major wine distributor in the region. The winery buys grapes from about 200 growers and makes in the region of 400,000 bottles of the wine each year (see bottles of the week). But, says Blanco, Valmiñor keeps a very close eye on the growers and their grapes throughout the year.
Blanco looks forward to getting her hands dirty, and the day after the awards ceremony was flying back to the firm's winery in the O Rosal valley, near the Portuguese border, to work on the early harvest. She dismissed fears that the fires which hit the north-west of Spain this summer would affect the harvest. "The valley is very well sheltered, and there were no fires there."
She also said that Valmiñor was experimenting with lots of new wines, though only two are in commercial production: Davila, a striking and attractive citrus-flavoured blend of Albariño and two other local grapes, Loureiro and Treixadura, and a 100 per cent Loureiro wine called Davila L100, which is surprisingly rich and fleshy, and very nice indeed.
Some years ago Valmiñor wanted to have a red wine in its portfolio and bought about 40 hectares of vines in the fast-rising Ribera del Duero region. Today their operation there, Ébano, produces two brilliant, and reasonably priced wines, the Ébano Crianza and Ébano 6, both made from 100 per cent Tempranillo aged in oak. The Ébano 6 also won NOFLA awards - for red wine of the year and best old-world red costing under €14. (The "6" refers to the months this vibrant wine spends in oak and in bottle before release.)