Viñedos do Gabián is the one-man project of José Pereiro López-Quecuty, known to his friends as “Pepiño”. Pepiño grew up in Vigo, where his parents ran a pharmacy. His interest in wine bloomed in his twenties, and in 2006 Pepiño earned a masters degree in viticulture and enology in Madrid.
Pepiño established Viñedos do Gabián in his native Galicia in 2013, after a few years working side by side with Raúl Pérez. The Ribeiro DO at the time was mostly known for bulk white wines, and rare world-class Treixadura-based bottlings produced by some of the smaller wineries in the region. Pepiño took the opposite approach, focusing instead on local red varieties Caiño Longo and Brancellao.
Estate holdings amount to a little over 2.5ha in an amphitheater-like clos in the village of Carballeda de Avia. Vines are planted around 250m altitude (notably high for this relatively flat viticultural zone) in decomposed granite soils called sábrego. Estate fruit is supplemented by purchases from a carefully-selected group of neighboring small vineyards. With an intense passion for the land and grapes of his home, Pepiño crafts very small quantities of pure and delightful wine… while he also runs his parents’ pharmacy by day. New plantings are underway so he can one day live from winemaking alone. For now, Pepiño’s schedule does not allow him time to work within the bureaucracy of the Ribeiro D.O., so his exceptional wine is humbly labelled “Vino de España”.
Ribeiro Xanledo Tinto – Caiño Longo, Brancellao