Villa de Corullon Descendientes de J. Palacios 2020

Descendientes de J Palacios Villa de Corullon 2020 is a Mencia-based red wine produced by Alvaro Palacios in the Bierzo region of north-west Spain. Alongside his nephew, Ricardo Perez, Alvaro founded Descendientes de J Palacios in 1998. Together they have gained an enviable reputation for their fragrant and elegant wines made from the local variety, Mencia. Villa de Corullon is a `village` level wine produced from around 7ha of biodynamically farmed old vines on slate-rich soils at 500-950m altitude. This vineyard area is divided into 200 or so tiny plots. "The wine makes me think of a red from Jura; it has a different profile and is more delicate, ethereal and full of light and energy. Pérez, who hates comparisons with other regions, couldn`t stop saying that it felt like a Morey Saint Denis! It`s all flowers and red fruit, with lot of super fine tannins (the 2019 tannins are rougher) that are round and give it a velvety texture with no rusticity - elegant and balanced. There is a nice balance between tannin and acidity, something this has in common with the 2019, which makes the vintages quite unusual, because being warm, the wines show balance. Today it feels more like Moncerbal than the Moncerbal bottling; nevertheless, Corullón is around 40% from Moncerbal... It has to be my favourite Corullón to date." Wine Advocate, 2022