In the age of the global economy and multi-national companies Bodegas Castro Martin stands proudly as a business still owned and managed by the original founding family. Sadly, there are now many other wine cellars in the Rias Baixas denomination that are owned by companies based outside Galicia, as the number of family-run bodegas slowly diminishes.
The history of Castro Martin can be traced back as far as 1887 where old documents prove the existence of a wine cellar and the sale of Albariño. The current cellar was constructed in 1982 by Domingo Martin-Morales, some five years before the D.O. of Rias Baixas was actually created. The winery was the very first in the region to be equipped with stainless steel tanks for wine storage, which at that time appeared as something of an extravagance, but that have since become the norm in modern white winemaking. The original tanks were subsequently modified to include temperature controlled cooling jackets and a nitrogen system (to optimise our wine storage conditions).
Domingo also had the foresight to construct the bodega over three different levels – the top level being the grape reception for harvest, the middle level is the pressing room, and the lower level our tank storage. Owing to this thoughtful construction we are able to minimise pumping, thereby handling grapes, must and finished wine with the utmost possible care. The maximum capacity of the cellar is some 300,000 litres, but with the grapes from our own 11 hectares of vineyards, and the grapes that we purchase, our average total production is nearer to 150,000/200,000 litres depending on the harvest.
Wine making innovation is always at the forefront of our agenda as we constantly strive to improve the wines that we make. At the turn of the millennium, for example, we started to conduct extensive tests with top quality synthetic closures. These have since proved to be ideal for our style of wine, slowing down the evolution and helping us to capture the freshness and vivacity of albariño in the bottle. Tests continue with these closures even today as we now monitor ’oxygen transfer rate’, looking for better ways to preserve freshness and help deliver our wine to customers in optimum condition.