Feliz 2024 | Albillo Mayor | Ribera del Duero

Félix Marina Gil is a sommelier, Nariz de Oro finalist and co-owner of gastrobar La Pícara in Aranda de Duero. He grew up in Hoyales de Roa, a small village in Ribera del Duero where Albillo Mayor — the denomination's only indigenous white variety — was being systematically uprooted to make room for more Tempranillo. In 2017 he founded Feliz Compañía Vinícola with a simple and provocative mission: to prove that Ribera del Duero can produce great white wine. He is today the only producer in the DO dedicated exclusively to the white variety.

Albillo Mayor occupies barely 500 of the DO's 23,000 hectares. Félix spent years locating centenarian vines scattered across different villages, took mass selections and propagated them at his own nursery in Hoyales de Roa, classified by village of origin to allow parcel-level vinifications in the future. He now works around seven hectares at 900 metres altitude on clay soils, with a target of ten. Harvest is deliberately early to preserve the variety's natural acidity.

In the cellar, the style blends aging in French oak with acacia wood — unusual in the region, contributing a distinctive aromatic lift — and clay amphorae for slower micro-oxygenation. Fermentations use indigenous yeasts. Feliz Skins is a 90-day skin-macerated Albillo Mayor, the first orange wine approved by DO Ribera del Duero under that category. The prestige cuvée Félix Marina Finca Buena Vista earned 95 points in the Peñín Guide; the entry-level Feliz was ranked fourth-best Spanish white wine in a blind tasting by Decanter with 94 points.