Albariño

Albariño is the signature white wine grape of Rías Baixas in Galicia, on Spain's cool, rainy Atlantic northwest, and of the Monção e Melgaço corner of northern Portugal, where it is bottled as Alvarinho within Vinho Verde. A thick-skinned, small-berried variety bred for a damp maritime climate, it gives a bright, aromatic, high-acid white built around peach and apricot, citrus and white flowers, often finished with a distinctive saline, sea-spray tang. Usually dry and unoaked, light to medium in body and modest in alcohol, it is one of the great seafood wines — crisp, refreshing and perfectly suited to the oysters, clams and octopus of its home coast.