Bierzo is in the far North-West of Castile - old soils, very dry, & planted to Mencia ... hardly a household name in great grape varieties. Named after Alvaro Palacios' father, Jose Palacios Remondo, this is a very exciting project, producing wines of vivid fruit & wild herb, fragrant, intense-but-delicate. Cornas-like wild Syrah characters meld with perfumed, slippery-tannined juicy Burgundian aspects. Alvaro & his nephew, Ricardo Perez, have renovated amazing steep-sloped, very high altitude old vineyards into biodynamic masterpieces. Dry-grown, tilled by horse ... they really are awesome sites.
A high-quality introductory 'media-crianza' having spent six months in french oak. Great intro to the slink'n'stink, fleshy beauty of Mencia. DJP '