1979 Portugal

From a single parcel of vines, La Faraona is the best Mencia on the market. The nose is beautiful with heady violets, lavender, crushed rocks and forest floor. Alongside the abundance of aromatics, this has fleshy, ripe fruit flavours and captivating smoky oak notes from the 600-litre barrels. The minerality keeps everything fresh and pure but a powerful structure suggests this will be a long lived one. This has such a long finish, showing all the details and layers you expect in exceptional wine.
Laura Atkinson - Private Account Manager

Bierzo's principal grape is the obscure, indigenous red variety Mencía. While Bierzo is a relatively new wine appellation (a DO since 1989), it has a wealth of very old vines, planted on extremely steep hillsides, and in this respect it much resembles the Priorat region. Alvaro Palacios, with his nephew Ricardo Perez, established Descendientes de J. Palacios in 1998 in the village of Villafranca del Bierzo.

This is almost the definitive expression of Mencía, its vines perched on a stark vineyard of pure schist. Typically aromatic, this Mencía combines concentration with remarkable finesse. Floral notes lead to dark, well-defined blueberry and blackberry fruit. It has lovely depth, but is linear in style, so you’ll experience a luxurious glide along the palate. There is a real lightness of touch on show here. Very classy indeed.

Outstanding in every way, El Pisón is still swathed in oak and youthful insouciance; its potential cannot be hidden, however. For me it has now joined the rather small coterie of world wines, of which, paradoxically, both expectation and experience seem to increase every year. 
Simon Field - Wine Buyer