2021 Raúl Pérez "Ultreia St-Jacques" Mencía Bierzo
94JG
93RP
91WS
$19.99
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94
John Gilman
Reviewed January 2024The 2021 Ultreia “St. Jacques” bottling from Raúl Pérez is yet another excellent wine from these very old vines. The wine is a Mencía-dominated field blend made from ancient vineyards, planted between 1900 and 1940, so even the “young vines” here are more than eighty years of age! The wine is made with a high percentage of whole clusters and aged in a mix of various-sized, old oak casks and puncheons, as well as some cement tanks. The 2021 St. Jacques comes in at 13.5 percent octane and delivers a refined aromatic constellation of cassis, pomegranate, tree bark, espresso, a lovely base of dark soil tones, discreet Mencía botanicals and a smoky topnote. On the palate the wine is deep, complex and full-bodied, with impeccable focus and balance, a fine core of black fruit, excellent soil undertow and grip, buried tannins and a long, poised and classy finish. This is certainly approachable today, but will be even better if the tannins are allowed at least a handful of years to soften up further. It is an excellent and very elegant vintage for this bottling!
Professional Reviews
93
Wine Advocate
The biggest volume of the winery is the 2021 Ultreia Saint Jacques, which represents some 170,000 bottles, and according to Raúl Pérez, it's the most difficult wine to make here. They now work a lot to produce this wine, a blend of 11 wines selected from the 17 they made. It's a wine that represents Bierzo and is from a year when they used more grapes from sandy soils. It has 13.16% alcohol and a pH of 3.66; it's serious and restrained but juicy and easy to drink. Seventy percent of the wine matured in barrel and the rest in troncoconic oak vats. (LG)
91
Wine Spectator
Crushed blackberry and boysenberry fruit is dark and ripe in this red, accented by hints of dried lavender, woodsy spices and a subtle underpinning of loamy earth and mineral. Fresh, with light, creamy tannins. (AN)
Staff Reviews
JM
John Majeski
John Majeski
"There was an old man with a beard, who said it is just as I feared! Two owls and a hen, four larks and a wren, have built all their nests in my beard." Although he is neither an elder nor home to a bevy of birds, Raul Perez must have more than a few tricks sequestered in his flamboyant beard, as his wines bear the mark of a true winemaking savant. Take his brilliant evocation of organically farmed, old vine Mencia, a spellbinding rendition that captures all the perfumed, savory, whole cluster fruit in an extended maceration lasting up to five months. Aged for one year in a novelty of neutral vessels, it is a riveting homage to the singular vision of Raul Perez.
MB
Michael Benoit
Michael Benoit
A fantastic bottle of red at a great value, this Mencia dominant field blend entices with aromas of toasty oak and game. On the palate, dense layers of blackberry gastrique, plum preserves, and dried herbs are counterbalanced with a fresh, medium acidity and fine-grained tannins. This wine is richly fruited, but still drinks quite dry. Given its richness and bold fruit, this will pair perfectly with anything from the grill. Grab a bottle or two on the way to your next BBQ!
KW
Kirk Walker
Kirk Walker
Sorry for the formatting, this was written in bullet point.
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It doesn’t get better than this.
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Old vines, vines that are somewhere between 70 and 100+ years old.
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A wine made by the most important winemaker in the region, who makes some of the highest regarded, highly awarded, and most sought-after wines from Bierzo.
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Farmed organically.
Made in a similar way as his most expensive wines; mostly whole cluster fermentation in large old oak vats, long macerations, and aged for a short period of time in a mixture of used oak of various sizes (225L-1000+L), with as little intervention as possible.
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All of that and it is $20!
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$20!
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Where else in Spain if not the rest of the world can you find that?
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This is not a one off, an incredible alignment of perfect conditions to allow a once in a decade accomplishment. This bottling has overachieved for the past 9 years at least (2012 was the first vintage we sold!). And from the beginning it has stayed in the same price range.
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Again, where else in the world?!
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This is a wine that hits almost all your taste buds (minus the salty but yes on the umami), there is something so satisfying with wines that do this.
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This is mountain wine, the wine speaks of hot days and cold nights, with its ripe fruit with just a little snap/acidic bite on the back end. It has wild mountain herbs and a savory wild element.
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A delicious and remarkable value, that excels this time of year (it is always great) but with the grill so readily available.... sausages, tri tip, ribs, chicken, you name it, it will work with this wine (sorry I am a carnivore).
Details
| Origin | Spain |
|---|---|
| Type/Varietal | Other Red Wines |
| Alcohol Content | 14% |
| SKU | 1715916 |