Ultreia, El Rapolao, Bierzo, 2020

More closed initially, the Ultreia El Rapolao unfurls to reveal a spellbindingly high toned Bierzo which radiates flowers and spice with elegant, fine grained tannins and a tension and lift that makes it impossible to avoid the cliched “Burgundian” descriptor. Situated just 200m from Cova de la Raposa, El Rapolao is the vineyard seeing the most local interest and attention amongst young producers. Raúl is the majority owner with approximately half of the 6HA. Importantly, as of this year, the Ultreia bottling includes an additional 0.2HA that was taken away from the Pérez family in 1936 at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, and that Raúl finally managed to re-buy in 2019. This brings the Ultreia bottling of El Rapolao to a mighty 0.5HA (1500bts), the original two plots being steep and high, one at 630m (80% of the blend) and one at 580m. Both are on hard, dark clay. The vines are 120 years old, a field blend mix of Mencia, Trousseau and Alicante Bouschet, yielding just 3,000kg per hectare on average (half that of the La Vizcaina bottling). Ultreia El Rapolao 2020 was fermented with whole bunches and saw only 1 month of skin contact before aging in 30% new oak for a year.