Community Tasting Notes 5

• Xavier Auerbach wrote: 92 points

  February 14, 2024 - Ribeira Sacra, single vineyard. A blend of 90% Mencia and 10% other varieties, 80-100 year old vines on gneiss, quartz and schist, 100% whole cluster, foot trodden and fermented together, aged for 12 months in neutral oak and cement, 13% ABV. Delicate style, fresh and minerally nose needs a bit of coaxing to show spices, blood orange and cranberry fruit; crushed red berry fruit on the gentle palate, subtle savoury notes, fresh and harmonious, transparent and pure, hint of cream, light tannins; crisp finish, very good resonance and length. Beautiful. Will age, but I will drink it young. My only bottle, alas.

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• benjamin96 Likes this wine: 92 points

  February 6, 2024 - Super beau, a pris plusieurs heures a se delier, mais la recompense en valait la chandelle.
  On croirait un beau pinot bourguignon melange avec un peu d’herbes salé a la envinate. Aucune deviance ici, juste du beau fruit. La prochaine dans 5 ans

  Comment

• KeithAkers wrote: 92 points

  January 19, 2024 - Rieslings and Ribeira Sacras (Magna Kusina, Portland OR): The nose is lifted, savory, and balanced with raspberries, red cherries, black pepper, violets, fresh herbs, crushed rocks, mineral notes, crushed flowers, and some sour red berries. There is good depth with this showing off lovely red fruits and a lighter sense of being. The Medium bodied feel shows off the savoriness and balance of the nose along with tart, medium+ acidity and silky, medium+ tannins. I really dig the mineral and savory take that this presents while it shows off good depth across the nose and palate. I do wonder what this will be like with a few more years of age as this could really turn on with that time.

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• PSPatrick wrote: 93 points

  October 8, 2023 - Medium to dark ruby colour. Good red and blue fruit, cherry, blueberry, black tea, espresso, complex spice notes, smoke, and saline and slate-like mineral notes, with great acidity and great persistence. Great intensity, purity of fruit, and concentration, and good complexity. Very well structured. Balanced, smoothly textured, and exceptionally long. A great wine! Equally good on day two.

  1 person found this helpful Comment

• Rote Kappelle wrote: 88 points

  July 17, 2023 - I felt a desire to expand my limited knowledge of Spanish wine. I like the food, I like Don Quixote and Lorca and I especially like Caganer and Tio de Nadal. I admire Basque separatists and Catalan separatists. I love Sherry, being something of a dry sack, myself.
  
  This maker appealed to me, as it was something that promised to be a little different - not more of the usual Rioja, or Priorat, with which I have a nodding familiarity (but no more). This is a cooler vintage of wines influenced by the brisk Atlantic climate of Galicia and said to speak of the slate on which the vineyards are sited. It is also, unfortunately the birth-place of that murderous runt Franco, but I prefer to think of Veiga and Andrade.
  
  This is a single vineyard wine, old vines, using a mix of indigenous grape varieties. These include 90% Mencia (once thought to be related to Cabernet Franc) and small amounts of Garnacha Tintorera, Brancellao and others. I pretend no real familiarity with the varieties, but I gather that Brancellao is used for aromatics of red fruits and spices, GT is used mostly for colour and perhaps providing some depth and Mencia provides lifted red fruits and often quite pronounced capsicum, leaf and earthy notes.
  
  The Ribbiero Sacra, from whence this maker hails seems to be an area that is gaining recognition for fine wine.
  
  Whilst there are things to admire in this wine I think I made a fundamental error in buying this vintage. A cooler year is always going to be a challenge with a wine made predominantly from a grape that just loves to toss out lots of green elements, even in warm years.
  
  The wine has a nice ruby colour, quite bright and with some depth (thank you Mr GT). The nose is interesting, with some very attractive red fruits, a lot of perfume lift but then also some definite leaf, capsicum and earth and something almost like a sour Chinotto.
  
  The palate is shorter than I would expect from quality wine, although intensity is ok, whilst it lasts. Tannins are there but not oppressive in their weight. However, they are quite hard and unripe. The wine is light on its feet but sour and hard to love. There is a balance issue here. I love some green characters in my wine, to add complexity and avoid fruit juice syndrome. This has way too much greenery and it is hard work drinking this, even with food of the fatty, casserole variety that I decided might give it a chance to shine.
  
  I really would like to score this higher, but I just don't see how. Arguably, I have been over generous. I might try a vintage from a warm year, when I think it might really come into its own but 2021 just took all the nasties and magnified them. What a pity. The song for this would be "You Want It Darker' with its refrain of 'We kill the flame'.

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Pro Reviews 1

Wine Definition

• Vintage 2021
• Type Red
• Producer Envinate
• Varietal Mencía
• Designation Lousas Parcela Seoane
• Vineyard n/a
• Country Spain
• Region Galicia
• SubRegion n/a
• Appellation Ribeira Sacra

Community Holdings

• Pending Delivery 3 (2%)
• In Cellars 175 (94%)
• Consumed 9 (5%)

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