Wine in Black Spaans Best Buy-pakket met bekroonde wijn

Decanter

Our Best in Show journey across Northern Spain continues with a 2020 Bierzo, grown just across the provincial border from Galicia into Castilla y Léon. It’s another zone of steep slopes and old vines – the variety in this case being Mencia (known as Jaen in Portugal’s Dão region). This wine is deep black-red in colour and vivacious and urgent in aroma: wild plums mingled with the woodland scents of leaf, copse and forest floor. The palate is fruit-packed and vibrant, vigorous with an energy derived both from ripe acidity and fresh though smooth tannins; look out, too, for a stony, bitter-edged finish perhaps derived from the region’s slate soils. Wonderful drinking now in the flush of youth, but fruit of this quality will hold well for a few years yet.

Decanter World Wine Awards

Wine Enthusiast

This dark-garnet-colored wine offers a bouquet of black currant, anisette and sage. Blackberry, cassis, dark-chocolate, violet and clove flavors are joined by a note of marjoram. Tannins start out feather light, slowly fill the palate, and linger for a while.

James Suckling

Dusty blackberries with some blue fruit, stones and spices. Nicely chewy and tight on the full-bodied palate, loaded with fine-grained tannins and juicy, almost tart fruit.

Robert Parker

Their youngest red is the 2022 La Vadina, from a very warm and dry summer when they have managed to keep the freshness in the wines—this has a pH of 3.3. The wine has moderate ripeness and alcohol (13.8%, almost 1% lower than the previous year); they harvested looking at acidity rather than ripeness, and they had to sort and select because in the same bunch they had both green and overripe grapes. So, it was a year that required precision and work. This pure unoaked Garnacha comes from 100% purchased grapes from different soils, vine ages and altitudes, all in the village of Almonacid de la Sierra; the grapes were harvested earlier and fermented destemmed in stainless steel with indigenous yeasts and matured in concrete for five months. It's primary and fruit-driven, with a floral note and less ripeness than previous vintages despite the natural conditions of the year (it feels like a cool vintage!). It's juicy, primary and fresh, with cleanliness and balance. A bargain.

Tim Atkin

Always a good value Crianza, this is a cuvée of Tempranillo and 10% Mazuelo and Graciano from a range of vineyards in the Rioja Alta sub-region. Marked by its 80% American oak, it has appealing aromas of sweet spices and desiccated coconut, vibrant acidity and layers of bramble and black cherry.

Mundus Vini