Llaethliw White Wine, Ceredigion, Wales 2023

The Llaethliw White 2023 is a bright, aromatic Welsh white with a distinctive green-herb lift. The palate is clean and fruit-forward, with zippy, lemon-sherbet acidity that keeps everything fresh and focused. Well-balanced and wonderfully drinkable from the first sip.

With its clear pale yellow colour, this wine looks like summer in a glass. On the nose it has fresh green apple aromas coupled with scents of gooseberry, stone fruits and meadow grass. This is followed up on the palate with refreshing flavours of crisp green apple and ripe nectarine.

The wine has a nice mineral aspect that is pursued by a generous citrus acidity.

Varieties: Orion & Phoenix

Vineyard

The Vineyard at Llaethliw is 1.5 miles from the sea and part of the coastal plain. The rain clouds hit the rising ground just beyond us and so the weather 2 miles inland from us is much wetter. The vineyard is SSE facing and well sheltered from the SW winds.

History

Llaethliw is the name of the estate on which the vineyard sits. It dates back to 1570. The Llaethliw estate was originally part of the Llanaeron estate but was sold off to pay mounting debts. It became a 1200 acre estate in its own right.

Today the estate is owned and run by Richard and Siw Evans, who bought the property in 2008. Both grew up locally in the Teifi and Aeron valleys. The idea for the vineyard came to Richard while exploring ways to diversify the farm and thinking about how climate change might open new possibilities.

Their son, Jac later studied viticulture at Plumpton College from 2010 to 2012, before returning home to look after the vineyard.

The first 8,500 vines were planted in 2009, and Llaethliw has been growing and evolving ever since.

What’s in the name

In the 1700-1850 pre steam ships and railways, the west part of Wales with its shallow shelving shoreline contained a major ship building industry (sail boats). The Llaethliw estate built and owned its own schooner ‘The Llaethliw’ which was used in the Irish sea including Cork, Bristol and Liverpool to transport materials for building and agriculture to and from this area. Slates, Lime, coal, wool are listed. Today the Evans family have the original oil painting of the schooner leaving New Quay on its maiden voyage and hence the idea of the logo on the bottle.

The name Llaethliw is the ‘colour of milk’ and a stream flows through our land which originates from clay deposits. The stream in summer often flows white and this is where we believe the name originates from.

Dylan Thomas also lived in this area and a wood on the land is called Allt Llaethliw. Did this trigger his ‘Under Milk Wood’ thoughts? He called his daughter Aeronwy after the river that runs in the valley and enters the sea at Aberaeron.