2013 La Faraona

Over 900 metres altitude. 70-80 year old vines. 6 hl/ha yield. Fantastic ground black pepper fragrance – almost enough to make you sneeze! Tremendously pure, superbly rich. Has a herbal edge that smells very much like (I imagine) marijuana (might smell). Really impressive combination of flavour concentration and structural delicacy. (RH)

If 2012 was a short vintage, the yields for the 2013 La Faraona were little short of catastrophic. The nose was explosive, with aromas of gunpowder (pun intended!) and black pepper, orange peel, aniseed, fennel and aromatic herbs, wild berries and a fine, almost chalky minerality. But if the nose is captivating, it's in the palate where the wine shows greatness - austere, long, elastic, mineral, focused, with laser-like definition and superb length. Somehow it made me think of a Cabernet Franc from the Loire. I have to say that this is the first time I have seen real greatness in La Faraona, and in 2013 it's the best wine from Descendientes. Only 432 bottles and seven magnums were produced, the shortest vintage ever.<br><br>The reds from Descendientes de José Palacios are always a field blend of old vineyards where Mencía dominates, but there's always a small percentage of other grapes, even some whites. 2013 and 2014 are quite similar vintages, cool years that will evolve slowly. 2013 was a typical cool year of the Bierzo, rainy and fresh (similar to 2006 and 2007), with a very difficult harvest, where sorting was key (they hadn't used the sorting table for four years); the wines have developed much better than expected. These are wines of finesse, a notch below 2012, perhaps not as complete. They are currently building a new winery between their Moncerbal and Las Lamas vineyards (in the quarter Chao do Pando of the village of Corullón), designed by Rafael Moneo, where they hope to vinify the 2017 vintage. There will be four stories, all by gravity, buried in the hill, with natural temperature (70% of the winery will be underground) and humidity. I tasted all of the vintages of Pétalos del Bierzo since the initial 2003 and none of them were over the hill, although their peak seemed to be at around 8-10 years after the vintage. The 2003 was quite surprising, as it didn't show any heat and showed developed aromas closer to a northern Rhône than a Burgundy. Other than 2003, some of my favorite vintages were 2006, 2010 and 2012. In 2003 they did even longer macerations, thinking about a wine to keep, but later they started with shorter macerations in search of a more drinkable wine. Apr 2016, www.robertparker.com, Drink: 2016-2024