Winemaker Notes
Blend: 90% Mencia, 10% Brancellao, Mouraton, Souson, and Garnacha
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2011 Lalama is a blend of local reds (mostly Mencía, but also Brancellao, Mouratón and Garnacha Tintorera) that was fermented in a combination of 500-liter open barrels and foudres with indigenous yeasts. The wine matured in contact with the lees for 13 months in well-seasoned French oak barrels and a further seven months in 4,500-liter oak vats. It has a wild, slightly rustic perfume, that for me represents the slopes of the Bibei river with some aromas of sour cherries, earth and a leafy hint. The palate shows a creamy texture, it's medium-bodied and it feels young and lively, so there is no rush to drink it. It represents a fantastic introduction to the reds of the Bibei zone of Ribeira Sacra and it's a favorite in restaurants because of its very good price to quality ratio: I order it whenever I see it. Besides that, they release their wines considerably later than most wineries in the zone; in this case, after a long aging in oak it still rested for 16 months in bottle before it was sold, which means the wines have had time to settle down in bottle and polish some of the possible edges they might have shown in their youth.
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Wine Enthusiast
Pure, clean, polished aromas of cherry, plum and berry are fit and fruity. This has a lot of life and spunky tannins, while flavors of raspberry, plum and wild herbs finish with a hint of brine and easy length. This is a fine Mencía made in a crowd-pleasing style. Drink through 2020.
Spanish red wine is known for being bold, heady, rustic and age-worthy, Spain is truly a one-of-a-kind wine-producing nation. A great majority of the country is hot, arid and drought-ridden, and since irrigation has only been recently introduced and (controversially) accepted, viticulture has sustained—and flourished—only through a great understanding of Spain’s particular conditions. Large spacing between vines allows each enough resources to survive and as a result, the country has the most acreage under vine compared to any other country, but is usually third in production.
Of the Spanish red wines, the most planted and respected grape variety is Tempranillo, the star of Spain’s Rioja and Ribera del Duero regions. Priorat specializes in bold red blends, Jumilla has gained global recognition for its single varietal Monastrell and Utiel-Requena has garnered recent attention for its reds made of Bobal.