Winemaker Notes
A bouquet of abundant red fruit such as raspberies and strawberries. Fresh mouthfeel and very fine tannins which confer elegance and personality to this wine.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
With notes of orange peel, spices and wild berries, the 2015 Tilenus Roble represents a small step up from the unoaked Mencía. Cropped from a warm year that produced healthy grapes, it has a palate with grip provided by some fine tannins that make it ideal with food.
Rating: 89+
Primarily found in the Bierzo, Ribeira Sacra and Valdeorras regions of Spain and in the Dão of Portugal (where it is called Jaen), Mencia is an early ripening, low acid grape that can produce wines of great concentration, complexity and ageability. And yet Mencia once suffered from a poor reputation and deemed capable of producing simple and light red wines. Post-phylloxera growers would grow this variety on low, fertile plains, which produced high yields and uncomplicated finished wines. Somm Secret—The recent rediscovery of the ancient, abandoned vines planted on rugged hillsides of deep schist has unveiled the potential of Mencia and added discredit to its old reputation.
One of the few northwestern Spanish regions with a focus on a red variety, Bierzo, part of Castilla y León, is home to the flowery and fruity Mencia grape. Mencia produces balanced and bright red wines full of strawberry, raspberry, pomegranate, baking spice, pepper and black licorice. The well-drained soils of Bierzo are slate and granite.