Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Floral with a minty side, showing raspberries, blackberries and blueberries. The medium-to full-bodied palate is fleshy, incisive and full of character. Firm and attractive, this has very well-knit tannins with a savory quality. From an old, north-facing, head-trained vineyard. Fermented with whole clusters.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2023 La Vizcaína El Rapolao has some citrus freshness (blood orange) that balances the natural rusticity the place gives to the wine. It has abundant, slightly dusty tannins that come from a year with good yields. This is mostly Mencía (with some field blend), and 80% of the grapes come from a vineyard planted in 1974 to 1976, one of the youngest plots in the lieu-dit. Fermentation was with indigenous yeasts and without temperature control.
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.