Albillo

 



This is a bottle of Albillo I met at one of those promotion booths at a department store the other day. Made from a grape that I had never tasted before, I  bought a bottle of course. I remember reading somewhere that Vega Sicilia sometimes blends a small amount of Albillo into their Unico, but that was all I knew about this obscure grape. A number of grapes have Albillo as part of their name, including Albillo Negra, which is a synonym for Tempranillo. Only two are called just Albillo and the one above is most likely Albillo Real. Albillo Real produces lightly perfumed wines of neutral flavour, but it contains quite a bit of glycerol contibuting to body and smoothness. Mentione of the grape goes back to the 15th century, and other writings indicate its presence in Rioja and Biscay. However it seems that even when people mention Albillo, they could mean another grape Albillo Mayor, and when referring to synonyms, things get even more confused. This will need another blog to explore.