Winemaker Notes
The vineyards used in Petalos include estate vineyards and rented vineyards in and around the village of Corullon. The vines range in age from 40-90 years old. All wine making is done biodynamically.
Blend: 91% Mencia, 8% Whites, 1% Other Reds
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2023 Petalos is a smooth, supple, easy-to-drink Mencia made in a refined and elegant style with integrated acidity. Long and lengthy on the palate, this is the wine that set the producers on their mission to show what Bierzo could do. Dusty and earthy in cacao powder, it’s a complete, complex red from different villages in and around Corullon and Villafranca del Bierzo planted in clay, iron-rich, and sandy soils. Along with the majority of Mencia, it has Alicante Bouschet, Gran Negro, Pan y Carne, Negreda, and other reds, as well as whites such as Jerez, Valenciana, Malvasia, and Godello, all from old bush vines. Delicious.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2023 Pétalos has around 20% grapes from Corullón and the rest bought from around 100 families across Bierzo, approximately 91% Mencía, 8% whites and 1% other reds that fermented in open-top oak and stainless steel vats with indigenous yeast. Malolactic fermentation took a couple of months in oak and stainless steel, and the wine matured in barriques and bocoyes for 10 months. It comes in at 13% alcohol with a pH of 3.74. It has a serious nose that combines berry fruit with herbs and a licorice twist, and it is a little tighter and more herbal, denoting more sensation of freshness in the wine even if the year was also warmish. But the peaks of heat did not reach the highs they did in 2022. It makes you think of the Bierzo wines from yesteryear, with the rain during the harvest. It's elegant but there's weight. Despite the price level, this is a wine that aged beautifully in bottle, something you don't expect in an entry-level wine. Final production figures were as expected, 297,867 bottles. The wine was bottled between January and April 2025. This keeps its position as one of the best values in Spain.
Rating: 93+ -
Wine Spectator
A suave red, offering depth and focus, with flavors of crushed mulberry and blackberry fruit, black olive, mountain herbs, pepper and paprika. Yet this is harmonious throughout, integrating supple, fine-grained tannins and plum skin–infused acidity. A minerally underpinning of smoke and crushed gravel emerges to drive the refined finish.
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Vinous
The 2023 Pétalos is a Mencía from Bierzo that blends fruit from both the lowlands and the slopes of Corullón in equal parts. Focused and precise, it offers hints of violet, wild herbs and fresh plum with touches of cherry and pomegranate. This is medium-bodied, juicy and supple, with delicate freshness and grippy tannins. Compared to the 2022, it feels more resolved and less compact, yet this retains its talc-like texture and a faint pink note.
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.