Winemaker Notes
The elegance Losada has brought to the new Bierzo in a very easy-drinking style. From managed vineyards on more gentle slopes in which clay soils predominate, is aged nine months in French oak and expresses the more tender and juicy side of the Mencía variety.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Attractive, ripe and bright purple berries with raspberries here, too. The palate has a silky, elegant and plush feel with fine and sleek tannins, carrying fruit in fresh mode. Drink now or hold.
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Wine Spectator
A velvety texture conceals depth and structure in this balanced red. Plum, cocoa, loamy earth and mineral notes mingle over well-integrated tannins. Balsamic acidity keeps this lively. Drink now through 2027.
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.