You have several factors in play here. Of course the Mencia grape is the center of the story, but also it’s unique, symbiotic relationship with the precipitous slate slopes of the River Sil in Ribeira Sacra, so isolated in places you can only get to some of the vineyarsd by boat. This is grown in a small family vineyard that farms lows yields (like they had a choice in this location) and it sees eleven months in a combination of new and used French oak. The aspect you don’t see on the surface is the guy who makes the wine, the mad genius of Bierzo, Raul Perez. One can see his stamp, the deceptivly dense, layered, surprisingly complex dark fruits with elements of smoke, flowers, and slate. It’s one of those deals that may not seem obvious because this wine ‘only’ got a ‘90’ from Wine Advocate and it costs over $20. Our contention is that you’ve got a winemaker at the top of his game, and whose own stuff costs a lot more, and this definitely is an even better wine than the score, or the 2005 which got the same score.
