El Castro de Valtuille Mencía Joven 2023

The only wine from 2023 I tasted is the very young red 2023 El Castro de Valtuille Mencía Joven, which shows the cooler character of the year, a year when the rains during the harvest gave the wines a character like the wines from the past, when it rained every harvest. All of the grapes come from old vines and were fermented destemmed by place, pressed after 20 days and blended before Christmas. This is primary, fruit-driven and ripe but fresh, with 13.2% alcohol and a pH of 3.73, juicy and approachable. It has a lot of finesse and is highly drinkable. They've been progressively shortening the maceration time for this young wine. It is the finest vintage along with 2021. They do different bottlings of this wine, as they produce around 125,000 bottles. This is a textbook young Bierzo. It was bottled unoaked in April 2024, a few weeks before I tasted it, but it felt very harmonious.