Mengoba Bierzo Brezo Blanco 2023 (6 Bottles) Bierzo, Spain

Grégory Pérez freely admits that you’ve got to have a few loose screws to grow all your grapes in the highest and rockiest sites in Bierzo. Crazy he may be, but we thank him for his efforts! Mengoba’s entry white is a fabulous blend of 85% Godello and 15% Doña Blanca, sourced from a variety of Bierzo’s highland terroirs. The Godello comes mostly from a stony Carracedo site as well as from some sandy loam and clay/limestone plots in Valtuille and Villafranca del Bierzo (at 500-plus metres elevation).

The Doña Blanca hails from similar sites, and also includes some older, gobelet material from the slate soils of Espanillo. The vine age for these plots sits between 20 and 80 years, which is remarkable when you consider the price. The wine ferments with wild yeasts and then raised on its fine lees in tank and large cask for six months.

It’s a mouth-watering, juicy yet pulpy wine with preserved lemon, quinine and crunchy pear fruit and a wonderfully tonic finish. Textural yet thirst-quenching with savoury complexity on the driven finish–this is a joy to drink, and a steal.

“Setting the tone for this collection of whites that have a strong personality and high quality, the 2019 Brezo Godello is a young and expressive that doesn’t show the reductive personality of many of the early-bottled Godellos.

This is supposed to be a wine of thirst, easy to drink, fruit-driven and with good acidity, but it goes well beyond that and shows character and typicity, with the textbook pippin apples, bay leaf and a bitter twist in the finish, showcasing the variety. Produced with grapes from a number of villages–Valtuille, Villafranca, Cacabelos, Carracedo, etc.–on clay-rich soils, it fermented with indigenous yeasts and was kept with the lees for six months. It was bottled in April 2020, and it’s already quite harmonious.”

92 points, Luis Gutiérrez, The Wine Advocate