Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
This red is harmonious, showing richness and focus, with a polished texture that carries expressive flavors of black cherry, licorice and tar, while lively acidity and light, firm tannins impart backbone and balance. Drink now through 2020.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
They reduced the amount of oak for the 2013 Losada, trying to show more the Mencía character in the wine. The nose denotes more freshness, it doesn't seem as concentrated as in previous vintages, and the palate also shows better balance. I like the direction this cuvée is going within the house style. There were 92,428 bottles and 300 magnums produced.
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.