Ultreia Saint Jacques, Bodegas y Viñedos Raul Perez 2021

The 2021 Ultreia “St. Jacques” bottling from Raúl Pérez is yet another excellent wine from these very old vines. The wine is a Mencía-dominated field blend made from ancient vineyards, planted between 1900 and 1940, so even the “young vines” here are more than eighty years of age! The wine is made with a high percentage of whole clusters and aged in a mix of various-sized, old oak casks and puncheons, as well as some cement tanks. The 2021 St. Jacques comes in at 13.5 percent octane and delivers a refined aromatic constellation of cassis, pomegranate, tree bark, espresso, a lovely base of dark soil tones, discreet Mencía botanicals and a smoky topnote. On the palate the wine is deep, complex and full-bodied, with impeccable focus and balance, a fine core of black fruit, excellent soil undertow and grip, buried tannins and a long, poised and classy finish.This is certainly approachable today, but will be even better if the tannins are allowed at least a handful of years to soften up further. It is an excellent and very elegant vintage for this bottling! 2024-2075.

The biggest volume of the winery is the 2021 Ultreia Saint Jacques, which represents some 170,000 bottles, and according to Raúl Pérez, it's the most difficult wine to make here. They now work a lot to produce this wine, a blend of 11 wines selected from the 17 they made. It's a wine that represents Bierzo and is from a year when they used more grapes from sandy soils. It has 13.16% alcohol and a pH of 3.66; it's serious and restrained but juicy and easy to drink. Seventy percent of the wine matured in barrel and the rest in troncoconic oak vats. 2023-2028

Ultreia St Jacques is back and good as ever, building on a very strong reputation that makes it one of the best value wines in the world. Bright ruby with a blue tinge in the glass, it has a struck flint nose on opening at this very early stage, but this is quickly shed in favour of red cherry, blueberry, white pepper and rosemary - it is such a complex wine for the money. Smooth, fragrant fruit is immediate on the palate, which has a light chalkiness of tannin to give it focus, savour and balance. It is a real feat to make a wine so juicy and immediate yet with clear depth and focus. Another delicious vintage for this superb Mencia, those who have loved this in the past cannot go wrong buying again this year.