Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
Smoky and toasty notes frame plum, licorice, tobacco and mineral notes in this savory red. Has a polished texture, with balanced structure, good depth and a clean, spicy finish. Drink now through 2025.
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Wine Enthusiast
This ripe offering opens with aromas of lightly stewed black fruits and baked beans. In the mouth, it's chewy and rich, with a syrupy leaning. Flavors of oak-based hickory, toast and savory spices accent blackberry fruit, while the finish is toasty, peppery and dark in character.
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.