Winemaker Notes
La Vizcaina Las Gundinas shows very fresh aromas of black fruit with certain notes of graphite and a background of thyme. In mouth it is fleshy, ample, with marked tannins and earthy aftertaste.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Dark cherries, nervy energy and a gentle floral note on the nose. The medium-bodied palate shows tension and an elegant expression of fruit—subtle yet tasty—framed by fine-grained tannins. Savory and delicious. From an extremely old vineyard rooted in deep clay soils in the village of Valtuille de Abajo.
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Vinous
The 2023 Las Gundiñas Lomas de Valtuille combines Mencía, Trousseau and up to 10% Doña Blanca from a centenary vineyard. It fermented with 100% whole clusters and aged for up to 11 months in barrel. This opens with appealing herbal aromas of sour cherry, a distant hint of violet and a touch of rosehip. The palate is firm and structured, with broad flavor intensity. The fresh vintage aligns well with the style and the whole-cluster character leaves a compact, slightly austere finish that promises to improve in bottle.
Rating: 95+ -
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2023 La Vizcaína Las Gundiñas has a more herbaceous nose, from old vines that might have 5% of white grapes. It's a wet year in a wet place, a vineyard that retains very well the water in drier years. It has a different expression that seems to transcend the place and vintage (Raúl Pérez compared it with the 2013), and it's more aromatic. I still think this plot behaves better in drier years.
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.