The winery
A small family winery in the heart of depopulated rural Spain, committed to reviving the mountain vineyards of Valdeorras.
Wine with a character of its own in Petín
Bodegas Sampayolo is a small winery in Petín (Ourense), one of those villages of depopulated rural Spain with barely 900 inhabitants.
Founded in 2002 by Javier García, it now produces around 58,000 bottles a year across its three grape varieties: Godello, Mencía and Garnacha. A small production, tended bottle by bottle.
Since its founding, the winery has sought to express its love of nature in every wine, blending tradition with innovative techniques both in the vineyard and in the cellar.
Tradition, nature and patience
What guides every decision in the vineyard and the cellar.
No synthetic chemicals
Plant-protection treatments kept as natural as possible, with no pesticides, glyphosates or herbicides whatsoever.
Mountain vineyards
Steep-slope plots, many of them worked by hand, on the slate terroir of Valdeorras.
Native grape varieties
Godello, Mencía and Garnacha: the age-old grapes of this land, recovered and cared for.
Between Las Médulas and the Camino de Invierno
Petín lies 20 kilometres from the Manzaneda mountain resort and 30 from Las Médulas, the largest gold mine of the ancient Roman Empire, designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997.
Running through the winery's vineyards are the Camino de Invierno (the Winter Way of the Camino de Santiago) and the ancient Roman Vía Nova (the Via XVIII), which linked Braga (Bracara Augusta) with Astorga (Asturica Augusta). To make wine here is to care for two thousand years of history.
Reviving what was almost lost
Since 2014, Bodegas Sampayolo has been running several projects to recover abandoned vineyards planted with native grape varieties, through crowdfunding schemes.
These are mountain plots that rural depopulation and the economic crisis very nearly wiped off the map. Reclaiming them means bringing a landscape back to life and keeping alive a heritage that had been yielding wine for centuries.
From forgotten vineyards to award-winning wine
The Sampayolo story: how, since 2009, hundreds of patrons have helped to recover the mountain vineyards of Valdeorras, vine by vine.
Bodegas Sampayolo · Petín, D.O. Valdeorras
Work that has earned recognition
Our Mencía was named Gran Baco de Oro 2024, one of only two Galician red wines to earn the top distinction at the Premios Baco. And the Garnacha added the Arribe de Ouro at the VinDuero-VinDouro.
View all awardsTaste our wines
Godello, Mencía and Garnacha from recovered mountain plots. Buy direct from the producer, free shipping within Spain.
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