La Vitoriana, La Vizcaina de Vinos, Bierzo, 2021
La Vitoriana offers the perfect balance of aromatic complexity, fruit focus and power. Planted in 1881, La Vitoriana is still on Pie Franco rootstocks, facing north at 600m elevation. Whole bunch fermented in large, open-top wooden fermenters with no temperature control. Skin contact varies from year to year but can be for as long as 90 days. Aged primarily in large tronconic vat with a small part in used 500L barrique for a year. The La Vizcaina bottling comes from the middle and lower sandier parts of the slope, while the Ultreia bottling comes from a tiny, estate-owned plot at the top.
critic reviews
I love the 2021 La Vizcaina La Vitoriana, where they use the westernmost part of the vineyard with more sand in the soils, mostly north facing. It's a wine with a floral nose that is aromatic and perfumed, elegant but with clout, with concentration and power. They have been picking earlier and earlier, lowering the alcohol, and they feel more comfortable below 13%; they removed the rusticity and extraction, and the wine is more elegant than ever. It reminds me of the 2018, with similar a profile of freshness. They produced around 5,000 liters from the one+ hectare they have here.