Lousas Viñas de Aldea - Mencia & co. (22)

85% Mencia met o.a. Brancellao, Merenzao, Grao Negro en Garnacha Tintorera (Alicante Bouschet) | fieldblend van meerdere wijngaarden | Amandi, Ribeira del Sil en Quiroga regio's in Ribeira Sacra | 25-60 jaar oude stokken | terroir van gneiss, graniet en leisteen | 400-600 meter hoogte | tot 30% ontsteeld | vergisting in open kuipen | 20% rijpt in beton en 80% in gebruikt Frans eiken voor 11 maanden | vrij gul | floraal | expressief | peperig | kersen | viooltjes | licht gekruid 

Envínate

Een joint venture gestart door vier wijn-nerds die elkaar zijn tegengekomen op de Universiteit. Een sprookjesverhaal toch? Na een aantal oogsten is hun reputatie flink gestegen en maken ze super wijnen op 3 verschillende locaties; langs de westkust van Tenerife, in Ribeira Sacra en in Almansa. Wijnen met laserprecisie, super energie en met een licht natuurlijk randje! Een prachtige aanvulling op ons portfolio!

Review

The sample of the 2022 Lousas Viñas de Aldea was in stainless steel, blended and sulfured and waiting to be bottled in a couple of months. Most 2022s are more immediate than the 2021s, and this is floral, perfumed and expressive, with a juicy and round palate. They now have more vineyards in general, so they compensated the lower yields with more land under vine. The 2022s have turned out fresher and cooler than what the conditions of the year pointed out. There will be some 25,000 bottles of this. Even though it's a lower-yielding year, they had more vineyards. 93-94/100 Luis Gutiérrez

The wines from Envínate, one of the most dynamic projects in Spain, are increasingly sought after in international markets. So, from now on, I will start tasting the wines every 12 months, giving a preview of the unbottled wines from the last harvest and the bottled ones in the market. From Ribeira Sacra, it's the bottled 2021s and the 2022s in barrel, two very different harvests. There are two new village wines from 2021, a vintage with good yields again. 2021 is a cool, classical vintage that shows quite transparently the character of the places, while the 2022s are a little rounder and more immediate, even if they ended up being much fresher than initially expected. 2020 was an earlier harvest (2017 was the earliest ever). In 2022, they started early, and in 2023 they started early too but then it was a long harvest because they had to stop because of the rain.