2021 Raul Perez 'Ultreia Saint-Jacques' Mencia Bierzo

Winemaker Notes:  Produced by world-class winemaker Raúl Pérez in DO Bierzo, Ultreia Saint Jacques is a fabulously priced varietal Mencía. Most of the grapes come from old vines planted in the Villegas vineyard, located near Valtuille de Abajo. The rest come from younger vines located in Villadecanes. Picked by hand and meticulously selected, the non-destemmed grapes were gently macerated and subsequently fermented in open oak vats with no temperature control. After the process, which lasted up to 5 months, the red wine Ultreia Saint Jacques was aged for 12 months in oak vats, 225-litre French oak barrels and concrete diposits. Finally, the wine was bottled unfined and unfiltered.

CRITICAL ACCLAIM


John Gilman - "The 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!"


Robert Parker's 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. "