daverudman:

Bierzo, Spain.

Few wine regions command the respect and awe of the career Sommelier as does this titan of international winemaking denominations.  Except for all of them.  Right, basically all of them.  It’s squarely between Moldova and Missouri on the “most obscure” and “least relevant wine” lists of regions.

Bierzo’s claim to fame these days is its production of the hipster varietal “Mencia”.  For years, there was talk that Mencia either was, or was closely related to Cabernet Franc.  Ampelography has demonstrated that the two are not related whatsoever, but the comparison gives you a pretty good idea of what to expect from the varietal.  Earthy, lean wines with wild berry fruit.

Well I’m pretty geeky, so I have been very much in on the Mencia “revolution”, as Jancis Robinson calls it.  It’s a pretty awesome thing, for a region to basically be completely resurrected.  She points out it happened to Priorat about 15 years ago.  Try buying Priorat wine now.

So it’s fun to get in on the ground floor and try some of the killer wines that will inevitably price you out in a few years.  The first I had was back in Brooklyn in ‘08 - “Vina Caneiro” was it’s name.  Consulting my ancient record of wine tasting, it had a tobaccoey cranberry thing going on that I liked.  This one was actually from the nearby Ribiera Sacra.  I kicked the tires on “Baltos” from Dominio de Tares not long ago.  Sadly, 5 of the bottles in the case were badly flawed.  The good bottles were just, good.  But I wasn’t floored.  Nor was I with a few others, “Avante” and “au Oro”.  Was basically ready to chalk the whole thing up to “meh”.

Until this week.  I have finally found the droids I’ve been looking for.  In all of its glory:

“Petalos“ by Descendientes de Jose Palacios.  First of all, this is one of the sexiest wine labels I have ever seen.  Love it.

The wine was just sick.  It changed into three different outfits just in the first 20 minutes of being open.  I got a faint fennelly thing, with some very bitter baker’s chocolate at first, which turned into sappy black cherry and black raspberry with kind of a chocolate pudding note, and then about 15 minutes later we went back and I called out a new soy saucy note that we all nodded our smug, sober assent to.  It was a real throwdown.

This is why Spain is still the KING of value in the wine world, and nowhere else even comes close to touching it, still.  I am having trouble accomodating all of these awesome wines at my place, honestly.  I’m pouring unbelievable stuff from regions like Toro, La Mancha, Catalyud, Carinena, and Jumilla.  And that’s just red!  Don’t get me started on my Verdejo fetish.