Casa Aurora 'Clos Pepín'
Bierzo > Spain
Garnacha Tintorera, Garnacha, Mencía, Palomino, Portuguesa (Trousseau), 2021
Forget everything you think you know about Bierzo as a regional style. While winemaker Germán Blanco does include Mencía in this co-ferment blend of native Northern Spanish red and white varietals, it is not the main focus per tradition. Hand harvested from high altitude dry farmed 78-year old organically farmed vines, the result is lower alcohol and higher acidity than you typically find here. Green and peppery! A perfect holiday pairing.
Bierzo > Spain
Garnacha Tintorera, Garnacha, Mencía, Palomino, Portuguesa (Trousseau), 2021
Forget everything you think you know about Bierzo as a regional style. While winemaker Germán Blanco does include Mencía in this co-ferment blend of native Northern Spanish red and white varietals, it is not the main focus per tradition. Hand harvested from high altitude dry farmed 78-year old organically farmed vines, the result is lower alcohol and higher acidity than you typically find here. Green and peppery! A perfect holiday pairing.
Bierzo > Spain
Garnacha Tintorera, Garnacha, Mencía, Palomino, Portuguesa (Trousseau), 2021
Forget everything you think you know about Bierzo as a regional style. While winemaker Germán Blanco does include Mencía in this co-ferment blend of native Northern Spanish red and white varietals, it is not the main focus per tradition. Hand harvested from high altitude dry farmed 78-year old organically farmed vines, the result is lower alcohol and higher acidity than you typically find here. Green and peppery! A perfect holiday pairing.
Blend: Garnacha Tintorera, Garnacha, Mencía, Palomino, Portuguesa (Trousseau)
Soils: iron-rich clay soils
ABV: 12.5%
The Story: Casa Aurora is winemaker German Blanco's homage to his great-grandmother, one of the first female miners in Spain, who raised him in Albares de la Ribera, a small village in Leon. Here, in a tiny hamlet just outside the Bierzo DO, German makes pure wines from micro-vineyards that dot the landscape, and are usually planted with very old vines of a variety of different grapes: Palomino, Mencia, Tintorera, Merenzao, Godello, Garnacha... The high-altitude and the iron-rich clay soils of the area gives these mountain wines a great balance between a soft mouthfeel and firm tannins. There is also a fair amount of granitic rocks in the terroir, and these are probably responsible for the floral, distinctive aromas of the wines. He farms organically and the wines, made in a tiny cellar as charming as his labels, are made from spontaneous fermentations in a variety of vessels, including amphorae, old foudres, and fiberglass flex-tanks.
Personality: This wine can be a bit reductive when first poured and needs a bit of aeration to blossom, but once it does, it offers up a superb bouquet of dark berries, smoked meats, black tea, a dash of graphite, fragrant botanicals and waves of peppery smokiness. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied, focused and complex, with a rock solid core of old vine fruit, superb mineral drive and grip, ripe, well-measured tannins and a the well balanced finish.
Harmony: Roast duck and cherry reduction? Yes please!