Rafael Palacios 'Louro' Godello 2019

My first exposure to Godello was back in 2013. I had just left Canlis to start a new Spanish restaurant with my friend and mentor, Chris Tanghe. He had just passed his Master Sommelier exam and I was about to sit my first attempt at theory. Aragona was the culmination of our desire to create an awesome regional wine list, with our hope being to introduce people to new things they'd never had (I've never lost that fire, thankfully). We spent months tweaking our wine list, tasting with reps across Seattle, and sourcing cool and obscure grapes from across Spain and the Mediterranean. It was a time of amazing exposure to new wines and grapes that I'd never had, and one of the most exciting was Godello.

We tasted the wines of Rafael Palacios, and my mind was blown. I likened Godello to Chablis–it was salty and bright, yet thicker in texture, with slightly more ripe peach in contrast to Chablis' tart green apple notes. We immediately used it to pair with seafood dishes on our menu, like spot prawns and a wonderful black cod dish. It had the texture to pair with richer items, but the zippiness of a cool-climate European white grown near  the ocean.

I tracked down the Palacios wines again, and they're every bit as vibrant and beautiful as they were when I first tried them. Rafael Palacios' Louro Godello is a perfect Godello to start with–brisk and lean, but still weighty on the palate. Louro Godello is the benchmark for this grape. It's a tasty, versatile white that can go with pretty much anything. 

Tasting Notes: white peach, sea spray, apple blossom, wet stone and pear.

Pairings: sitting on a dock of the bay, eating prawns, grilling fish (both the activity and the eating)