I have two bottles of Avanthia Mencia, 2006 and 2007, that I bought in successive years based upon tastings at a portfolio tasting because I liked my one ounce pours. Now I do not know how long to hold them before opening because, to paraphrase a humorist whose identity I have forgotten, you could put my knowledge about Mencia in a thimble and still have enough room left over for all the sincerity in Hollywood and an agent’s heart. Anyone have any meaningful information?
Very little.
What I got is this; probably better young and new oak kills it.
Best, Jim
Sounds like you could be talking about d’Angerville’s purchase of Puffeney’s trousseau vineyards, except for the aging point
I love “Menthia” - and I do prefer it in it’s youth - the ‘Joven’ bottlings without oak are just sumptious in their first couple of years -
And I like the ones done in oak as well -
And I have never had one over 5 years of age - so not sure how they will age -
I’m with Jim and Thomas. Like them young, never tried to age one, didn’t seem like a good idea.
Let us know how they are.
Mencia’s great. Not sure how it ages though. Oldest I might have had is between 6-8 years. It loses the upfront fruit and becomes muskier to me and less sweet, but sometimes the alcohol doesn’t balance right. Why don’t you pop 'em open and report back?
Hmm, good to know there’s some consensus here re not ageing. I have bought Palacios’ Petalos since 2009 based on a bottle tasted and the relative value. I figured these needed a few years in bottle and would be great around 5-10.
I have had a couple bottles of 2004 Tilenus Pagos de Posada in the past year or so. (apparently this bottling is released at about 8 years after vintage) I thought it drank much, much younger than the years would suggest, leading me to question the wisdom of aging it based on how young it drinks.
There does seem to be some diveregence in style, from some wines being lighter and a bit pinot-like (ie Paixar) to the heavier, more extracted wines like the Tilenus
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Big fan of the Ribera Sacra expression of it - less so Bierzo (although there are exceptions).
We’ve enjoyed the Palacios “Petalos” from the past few vintages (09-11), and really haven’t let them gain much age. Relatively light and fruity with enough earth to keep me happy, and not as tannic or green as young Loire cab franc.
I’ve wanted to try their medium-higher end offerings (Corullon and Moncerbal), but they aren’t as widely available, and the ~$18 Petalos is hard to beat from a QPR standpoint. Not sure what’s going to happen with more oak and a lengthier aging curve. And, by the way, I think they’re just nuts with the high end Faraona bottling. Just can’t see anyone realistically paying $600 per bottle for Menica, no matter how good it might be…
I’ve liked the Palacios Petalos too – been a while since I’ve bought one.
But who’s actually had old mencia? I haven’t.
Opened a 2010 Corullon tonight. Quite a powerful expression of Mencia with dark red fruits. Deep sappy palate. Unfortunately I fid the expression somewhat spoiled by oak. Maybe it will integrate with time?
Seems to me with Mencia that there are too many emerging styles and low availability which makes it difficult to know whether it ages well and which style works best. I have about 12 different producers in my cellar so will see if there are any older vintages.
Drank a '99 at 12 years old… I enjoyed it.
The wine has other notes around the same age here
-
1999 Descendientes de José Palacios Bierzo - Spain, Castilla y León, Bierzo (11/13/2011)
OC4POKER XI - Spain, Portugal, and Bubbly (WCC - Irvine CA):
C: Dark garnet (edit) with early signs of brick around the edges
N: Very strong floral bouquet
P: Dark fruit, incense, dusty tannins, and some barnyard.
F: pleasant lasting climax
Posted from CellarTracker
I am really enjoying Mencias, with thir mineral infused mid weight nature. My suspicion is tha they will age well, as they seem to have a good bed of tannins. The wines of DJP have impressed me greatly and I have snuck a few away to test the theorem.
When I was at Michigan, they were opening the new performing arts center and as an officer of the student government, I was invited. Just for fun, I rented a gold tuxedo, which I wore with a red bandanna instead of a cravat. The Michigan Daily assigned someone to write a society column a la The Onion on the event, but it turned out she was color blind, so she wrote that I was resplendent in my chartreuse tuxedo.
Wine color? Not so much.
Wrong word for the color!.
Chartreuse is a yellow green.
It was garnet.
Well, depending on how you define “old” I may have. There just aren’t too many that are 20+, but there. Descendientes de J. Palacios only started in 1999 if I’m not mistaken, and while I don’t have any of that, I do have some 2000 and 2001 Corullón. About ten years ago, we did a tasting of all the bodega’s vintages that were out at the time from Moncerbal, Las Lamas, and Villa de Corullón. The more expensive bottlings weren’t necessarily better than the basic bottling. Then about two years ago I did a mini-retrospective to see how they were doing, as I’d picked up a case of the 2001s, and we did a tasting of everything we could find from 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2004, to see how they were aging.
That was a little disappointing to be honest, and I talked to some importers and wine makers about it since they were interested in our thoughts. The wines didn’t seem to be aging in a good way - they weren’t dying necessarily, but there wasn’t a core that was particularly appealing.
Raul Perez was only born in 1972, so he wasn’t making wine there until the 1990s either. At this point it’s kind of a work in progress. So far, from what I’ve tasted, SOME of them age pretty well.
That said, if you go there, you’ll be disappointed, at least I’ve been disappointed. There are only a few imported and most of what you find over there is really bad, which shouldn’t be too surprising I guess.
Much of it is young, fruity wine, akin to some of the New Jersey wine you may have had the misfortune of trying at some point. That’s what most people are interested in, since they buy the Petalos and the like. The Petalos BTW, isn’t particularly distinctive so it shouldn’t be taken as any kind of proxy for the region. Bodegas del Abad is better by far. I used to work with them so if you think I’m biased, several times Asimov has named their basic bottling one of his best values. He consistently likes it.
At its best, the wine from Mencia isn’t particularly about fruit so much as the young drink-now versions are. A friend of mine can usually pick the wines out blind because he says he picks up something that reminds him of charcoal, and maybe that’s right. There is usually some dark fruit, but you don’t get the medicinal quality that some CA Cabs have, nor do you get a lot of overt oak in most of the better ones, although it’s there. I guess if I had to compare them to something, it would be to classic Bordeaux in the way they age, i.e. they’re not so much about fruit like CdP or even acid like some wines from Tuscany or Piedmont. But they don’t have the herbal notes of Bordeaux, so it’s not flavor I’m talking about so much as structure, if that makes sense. And BTW, it is NOT related to Cab Franc.
And the jury is still out on the ageability. I was the voice of one against nine when I suggested that they don’t really seem to age well. The others were people in the wine business and a couple MWs, so what the hell do I know. Of course, what the hell do they know either, since I’ve probably had as much as they have. So I was going to open some 2001 next year at the 15 year mark and we’ll have another data point.