Descendientes de Jose Palacios, Faraona, Bierzo DO 2023
75cl £ 790 1 bottle available In Bond

Region

Spain > Castilla y Leon > Bierzo

Producer

Descendientes de Jose Palacios

Grape

Mencia

Type

Red

Designation

DO

Vineyard

Faraona

Appellation

Bierzo

Classification

Score


label

WO score

RP
V
JR

WO score is the average of all critic scores for this wine

Tasting notes

Robert Parker
Tasted: 20/06/2024
Drink: 2026-2040


The excitement of tasting a new vintage of La Faraona is hard to describe. The young, mysterious and insinuating 2023 La Faraona reveals an incredible nose of roses, violets, wild berries and herbs, curry and white pepper and an herbal twist of freshness, with incipient complexity and outstanding elegance. It's their highest vineyard, planted with 83-year-old Mencía and 2%...

...white grapes that achieved 13.5% alcohol. The rain from the second week of September didn't do it any good, because it was still far from being harvested. It required a lot of manual work to keep all the bunches separate, never touching the ground, cleaning the vines manually one by one. It fermented with some full clusters in oak vats and is currently aging in a 1,600-liter foudre. There is no oak to be found in the aromas, and the tannins are as elegant, fine-grained and ethereal as I've ever seen in this wine. They got a good crop even though they did a green harvest. This is elegant to the point of being approachable even earlier than the 2022.