Wine Advisor
Descendientes de Jose Palacios, Moncerbal 2023
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Description
Tasting notes
Reviewed by: Luis Gutiérrez
Álvaro Palacios defines the 2023 Moncerbal as juicy and crystalline, an energetic red from 2.1 hectares in this paraje from Corullón where the soils are shallow and the vines are on steep slopes at 610 to 730 meters above sea level. It's 92% Mencía and 8% Jerez that fermented with some full clusters and indigenous yeasts in oak vats with manual punching down of the cap. It's currently aging in barrel. It's paler than the 2022 (or any other wine from 2022 or 2023) and also the most aromatic, floral, ethereal and insinuating from the whole range of 2022s and 2023s that I tasted next to it. The wines were in 12 glasses for a good two hours, and it didn't stop changing, like a chameleon; it's perfumed, showy, floral, pungent, mysterious and intoxicating... It blew me away. There is a transparency, symmetry and elegance that I didn't expect. Ricardo Pérez Palacios told me it reminded him of the 2013. This has 13.1% alcohol; most 2023s are around 13% alcohol (except the 2013 La Faraona, which has 13.5%).
About the Producer
Descendientes de José Palacios (DJP) is one of three estates of the family of Álvaro Palacios. The 'Descendientes' are Álvaro Palacios and his nephew Ricardo Perez Palacios, both of whom grew up in the Palacios family home in Alfaro, Rioja. Both are descendents of Álvaro's father, José Palacios, who died in 2000, just as the first Bierzo wines were being prepared and for whom the Bierzo project was then named. DJP commenced in 1999, when the young Ricardo was studying permaculture in Leon, subsequent to his viticultural studies in Bordeaux. Ricardo came across some very old plantings of Mencía high on the mountain slopes above the village of Corullón, and recognised these as heritage material of great potential and importance, just as Álvaro has done a decade earlier with the remnant old autochthonous Garnatxas of Priorat. Álvaro was summoned to inspect and an immediate decision was made to invest and investigate. Ever since, Ricardo and Álvaro have been purchasing and renovating old vineyards, massale propogating heritage genetic material throughout their holdings, all the while refining how to grow and vinify Mencía.
