Bodegas A Tapada

The Bodegas A Tapada winery, lead by the Guitián family, pioneered the barrel fermentation process for white wines and they have achieved one of the world´s most elegant expressions of Godello grapes in their barrel fermented Godello white wine.

The Bodegas A Tapada winery of Valdeorras was founded in 1985 when the Guitián brothers (led by Ramon Guitián), replanted 9 hectares of grapevines in their family´s vineyards, entirely with Godello grapevines. In the year 1994, after these grapevines had reached full maturity, one of the best enologists of the Iberian Peninsula at this time, José Hidalgo, experimented with the barrel fermentation of this winery´s Godello white wines. He named this wine La Tapada and it had incredible success. In the following year, 1995, there was an incredible Godello harvest and this winery repeated the production of this barrel fermented white wine. With this wine the Bodegas A Tapada, or more commonly known as the Guitián winery (named after its owners), became the leaders in Godello wines in Valdeorras. The Valdeorras region had traditionally emulated the example of the Spanish, Rías Baixas DO, but with this new wine the attention shifted towards the barrel fermented white Galician wines.

Without a doubt, the secret to the Bodegas A Tapada winery´s success remains in their 9 hectares of Godello grapes that continue to improve year after year, providing for brilliant collectors wines that have an incredible ability to age. These vineyards lead to the production of the first barrel fermented Godello wine of the world, Guitián Fermentado en Barrica 1996. This name literally means, Guitián Barrel Fermented, and with its extraordinary authenticity and grand international prestige this wine won the international wine competition, the “Challenge International du Vin de Burdeos.” This was one of the most important wine competitions at this time, and there were 4,822 different wines in this competition from all around the world. Furthermore, this wine won over 17 different awards from CIVART, being the only Spanish wine in history to ever do so. Each new vintage of Guitián Fermentado en Barrica maintains this extraordinarily high level of quality.

Today, Carmen and Senén Guitián have taken the torch and they are continuing the pure excellence and authenticity of this incredible Spanish winery.