Jose Antonio Garcia Mencia de Corullon Aires de Vendimia 2018

  • 93 Wine &
    Spirits
  • 92 Robert
    Parker
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Jose Antonio Garcia Mencia de Corullon Aires de Vendimia 2018  Front Bottle Shot
Jose Antonio Garcia Mencia de Corullon Aires de Vendimia 2018  Front Bottle Shot Jose Antonio Garcia Mencia de Corullon Aires de Vendimia 2018  Front Label

Product Details


Varietal

Region

Producer

Vintage
2018

Size
750ML

ABV
13.5%

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Somm Note

Winemaker Notes

This medium-framed, magenta-hued, red wine showcases aromas of plums, smoked meats, and savory iodine notes. It showcases the depth and clout of old vines with silky tannins lingering on the palate.

Professional Ratings

  • 93
    Jose António García and his wife, Julia Peña, are both from families with long winegrowing history in Bierzo. When they started restoring their family vineyards, García was working in Valtuille de Abajo, in Raúl Pérez’s cellars, before starting to make his own wine in 2011. Aires de Vendimia is his most traditional wine, an exploration of ancient growing and winemaking techniques that starts, in this case, with 70- to 100-year-old vines from family parcels in Corullón’s clay and slate soils, their altitudes ranging from 2,100 to 3,200 feet. García foot treads the whole bunches, allowing them to ferment without added yeasts in open-top foudres. He then racks the wine by gravity into old French oak barrels where it ages for 11 months. It’s a powerful Bierzo tamed by lovely richness in the fruit, black-cherry depths gripped by dry, slatey tannins that initially feel almost tingly on the tongue. Give it time in a decanter and the floral aspects of the fruit emerge as the mineral power begins to relent. Built to cellar.
  • 92
    Garcia's family comes from Corullón, and in 2018, he has a wine produced with grapes from vineyards in his village, the 2018 Aires de Vendimia Mencía de Corullón. This is perhaps juicier and has brighter fruit—red rather than black—compared to the one from Valtuille, where he has his winery. The soils here are slate-based, and the wine is perhaps fuller and has a different texture. It fermented in open-top barrels and matured in 500-liter barrels for one year, which might explain a subtle creaminess.
Jose Antonio Garcia

Jose Antonio Garcia

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Jose Antonio Garcia, Spain
Jose Antonio Garcia Julia and Jose Antonio Garcia Winery Image

Jose Antonio García and his wife Julia Peña García (JAG) are at the forefront of the next generation of vignerons in Bierzo leading the charge towards wines of place and definition. Their familial roots in Bierzo are fundamental to them, as they do all of the work in the vineyards themselves, which is signified by the term viticultor on their bottles.

Jose’s first commercial vintage of his iconic Unculín Mencía de Valtuille was in 2011, after two vintages of perfecting his expression. Their cuvée Unculín is a fresh, vin de soif-style Bierzo that offers an antidote to overblown, internationally-styled wines previously made in the region. Unculín is a Vino de Villa wine from over 80 different organically-grown small plots that are family-owned in the village of Valtuille de Abajo from 500m to 650m elevation, planted with 60 to 100-year-old traditional bush vines from native varieties. JAG’s minerality-driven Unculín echoes the traditions of co-fermentation in the Bierzo region while pushing the envelope of possibilities. Unculín brings similar energy to Bierzo as the Cru Beaujolais movement in France.

In the spirit of elevating their family holdings and with an inexhaustible work ethic, Jose and Julia set out recuperating historic vineyards by hand, recovering them one by one from the stranglehold of wild ivy. It’s a monumental work considering the 25ha of indigenous, old vines they own in Valtuille de Abajo and Corullón, and the fact that they are doing all of the work themselves.

All of the work in the vineyard and winery is performed manually with the use of gravity, minimal intervention, and no chemical inputs. Quality, excellence, and soul are always the philosophy. JAG is defined by small production, very low yields, artisanal methods, and minimal intervention, yielding complex, elegant, delicious wines among the finest in Bierzo.

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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.

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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.

EWLSPBIECOR18_2018 Item# 677307

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