Raúl Pérez

El Rapolao, La Vizcaina de Vinos, Bierzo, 2017

Name: El Rapolao, La Vizcaina de Vinos, Bierzo
Brand: Raúl Pérez
Price: 160.73 GBP

95/100

Robert Parker Wine Advocate

94/100

Vinous

Available Vintages

all 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021

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in bond

portfolio

2017
3x1.5L
DP
£160.73

Justerini & Brooks Tasting note

Always the most floral and elegant of the La Vizcaina crus, the 2017 offers up freshly cut red fruits and summer berries, really finely tuned aromatics and a veritable stoniness unique to this cru. From a total of 1.5 hectares split across two parcels, one planted in the 1920s and the other in 1980. The older parcel is predominantly hard clay and stones, while the younger parcel has looser, more organic soils and they blend to create a wine of fine minerality and salinity, with silken fruit and style. Elevation averages 550m and exposition moves from north to west. Fermented with 100% whole clusters in traditional wooden vats. Unlike the rest of the La Vizcaina range, El Rapolao sees slightly a shorter skin contact, generally between 30-45 days, and ages for 12 months purely in 500L barrels rather than 225L barrique, yielding a wine of medium body, cool elegance and wonderful persistence.

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GUARANTEED PROVENANCE

Provenance in fine wine

When it comes to purchasing wine, provenance is of upmost importance. A wine’s history – where it’s sourced from and how it’s been stored – can have an enormous influence on the eventual enjoyment it provides. At Justerini & Brooks, we can trace nearly every case back to the domaine, estate or Château it originally came from; we ship from over 200 wine producers throughout the world.

Wines not bought directly from the vineyard are either sourced from trusted suppliers, with whom we share the same philosophy and rigour in buying, or from our own network of Cellarers customers. These customers’ wines are stored in optimal conditions in Octavian Corsham and, in the vast majority of cases, have been stored by us since the wine was first shipped. We do not purchase wine from auctions.

We feel it is equally important to for our customers that the case they buy and leave in storage with us is exactly the same case they subsequently have delivered. This may sound obvious and straightforward, yet we are one of very few merchants to have taken measures to ensure this.

We have created a system where every case is independent, thereby ensuring a trail of ownership and peace of mind for every customer.

The Journey

Justerinis ensures that every case of wine stored with Cellarers (Wines) Ltd has a unique identifier and customer’s name, almost unheard of in the industry as it is expensive to administer. These details are printed and placed on every case which is logged and recorded under your account name and kept in the world’s most renowned storage facility, Octavian Corsham.

This information is sent from our systems to the warehouse every day to ensure the trail of ownership is verified and upheld.

While customer reserves are stored in Corsham, our physical stocks are kept in Hoddesdon, further providing a geographical separation between customers’ wines with Cellarers and Justerinis’ own stock.

Further Reassurance

Cellarers (Wines) Ltd is a legally separate limited company from Justerini & Brooks which currently holds approximately £450 million worth of customer reserves. It is fully insured to catastrophic loss. Many merchants will state that wine in their care is fully insured, but in reality this is on an individual case basis with insufficient cover for total loss as this is prohibitively expensive. The cover provided by Octavian and Justerini & Brooks is unmatched.

Cellarers (Wines) Ltd is audited by PwC every year.

Critic Reviews

94/100

Josh Raynolds,

Vinous

Shimmering ruby. Ripe, spice-tinged blackberry, cherry cola, licorice and pungent floral qualities on the deeply perfumed nose. Densely packed red and dark berry liqueur and violet pastille flavors are lifted and sharpened by a jolt of smoky minerality, and a licorice note emerges with aeration. Concentrated as well as energetic in style, finishing with superb persistence, building tannins and lingering spice and floral notes.

drinking window 2023 - 2031

date of review 06/2021

95/100

Luis Gutierrez,

Robert Parker Wine Advocate

I was impressed by the 2017 La Vizcaina El Rapolao, but the warm vintage was very good for a warmer vineyard like El Rapolao. This is hands-down my favorite of the 2017s from La Vizcaina, the wine that shows more freshness. It's harmonious and perhaps was harvested a little earlier than the others. Like the other wines from the range, this 2017 has more color than the 2018, as well as more power and a little more concentration, and it's also denser than the 2018, with tannins that are grittier and a little drier. But if I didn't have the 2018 next to this, I would only be praising it, because the 2017 is truly impressive, all in place and simply one step up in power and all the rest to keep the balance. 10,000 bottles were filled in May 2019. This is a late-budding vineyard, and it didn't suffer the effect of the spring hail from the year.

drinking window 2020 - 2027

date of review 06/2020

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Specifications

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abv:

13.5%

allergen information

This product may contain sulphites. Full allergen information is available upon request, please call our Customer Relations Team on +44 (0)20 7484 6430.