Sorry, I just can’t help myself…
When I taste something so good that I’m still impressed 4 days later, I have to write about it.
And yet, I see I already devoted a mailing to it in December. That was when it arrived. I had already tasted it the year before, but it had been a while since then. And I knew it was very good.
After all, 2023 is a great vintage in Bierzo!
Yes, I know, Bierzo again;
it remains one of my favourite regions. Every time I taste an older vintage from
Raúl,
Verónica,
César or
Ricardo, I’m impressed all over again.
This time, the victim was a bottle of Corullón 2023 from Ricardo Palacios, the current vintage.
My first reaction is always to check: how many bottles do we still have?? After all, the new 2024 arrives in October.
And fortunately, we still have close to 150 bottles in stock. So I think: “enough to last until October if I keep my mouth shut about this”, but in the end, the urge to shout it from the rooftops here in the Kempen became too strong. Sorry!
My second reaction is: and what does Gutiérrez actually say about it? By then, I had completely forgotten…
The exciting part is when he writes exactly what I was thinking while drinking this bottle over the weekend!
97/100 Descendientes de J.Palacios, Corullón 2023, Bierzo
"The village 2023 Corullón was produced with a selection of 90 plots from the 200+ that they own in the village. It drove me crazy when I tasted it unbottled last year, and it has delivered what it promised. It had an élevage of 9.7 months in barrels, bocoyes and foudres and finished at 13% alcohol with a pH of 3.74. It has a stony, quite Moncerbal-ish (according to Ricardo), serious, austere and a little reductive character, with a flinty and elegant reduction that I love. The vines have been worked organically and biodynamically since they started in 1999, and they achieved organic certification in 2018. The vines are very balanced, and they have learned to manage the warm years much better than in the past (in 2017, they were a lot less ready than today). 2023 was still a warmish year (or at least it's not a textbook Atlantic year), even if the wines, like this Corullón, have a profile that makes you think of a classical year in Bierzo from 20 years ago. It makes me think of the 2001 that I've always liked very much, among my favorite years ever, and also 2021. This is super elegant and fine-boned, one of the finest vintages to date. It's not very fruit-driven and is a little spicy, with weight but ethereal..."
And that was exactly what I thought: this wine is very much in line with the 2001 (the first vintage we tasted and bought, back in 2003!!) and the 2021, which was another great vintage.
That makes it all the more striking when you read exactly the same thing. Quite something!
If you already have some in your cellar, go on and open another bottle! If you don’t have any yet, don’t hesitate and buy one of the last bottles of this delicious 2023. The next vintage will already arrive in October!
This is top-class Mencía. And from the pioneer of biodynamics in Spain. From the higher part of Bierzo, exclusively from vineyards on slate soils. Very Atlantic and elegant in style, and for some tasters also very “un-Spanish”.