I'd been hearing about Bierzo for years. A friend kept pushing it, my Catalan wine guy Jordi in Barcelona used to mention it occasionally, I'd even had a glass somewhere and thought "yeah, fine." Never bought a bottle on my own initiative.
Then a couple of years ago I was in a wine shop near Les Halles in Lyon and the guy behind the counter — I'd asked for something Spanish that wasn't Garnacha because I was boring myself — handed me a Descendientes de J. Palacios. Not the expensive one, one of the entry-level bottles, the Pétalos del Bierzo, maybe €18 or so. I remember thinking it was a bit much for a random Tuesday but I bought it anyway.
I genuinely didn't expect what came out of that bottle. It's hard to describe Mencía to someone who hasn't had it because your brain keeps trying to file it somewhere — it's not quite like a Pinot, not quite like a Gamay, definitely not like anything else from Spain. There's this quality to it, almost like the wine is lighter than it should be given how much flavour is in there. Slate and dark cherry and something floral that appears and disappears. My girlfriend, who is deeply unimpressed by most things I open, asked what it was.
Bierzo is northwest Spain, the Mencía grape, grown mostly on slate soils at altitude. Raúl Pérez is the name that comes up constantly and for good reason — Descendientes de J. Palacios is his family project with his uncle Álvaro, and even their most accessible bottles show what the region can do.
It's still flying under the radar outside specialist wine circles. I have no idea how long that lasts.
For 15 years, Athan Zafirov has traveled the vineyards around the world and worked with some of the greatest chefs including Francois Duc and Alan Brown.
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