2015 Lousas Parcela Camino Novo
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Year in, year out, the wine produced from the Camiño Novo is my favorite, and the 2015 Lousas Parcela Camiño Novo is no exception. Even if located in the same zone as the Seoane and also around 80 years old, the character is quite different, sharper and more austere and vertical, even in a warmer and riper year like 2015. It's mostly Mencía with 10% Garnacha Tintorera grapes. The vines were planted in the 1930s. They have worked very intensively in the viticulture of this plot, which is harvested some ten days after Seoane. It's a mysterious, telluric wine, nuanced and perfumed. There's clearly something in this place as it always produces a very special wine, perhaps not as immediate or expressive as the Seoane, but with an inner strength and minerality that give it an austere and serious profile. 1,200 bottles produced. It was bottled in November 2016.
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Neal Martin
Luis Gutiérrez, Wine Advocate
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During the Burgfest tasting, we tend to diversify our drinking habits at dinners as members proffer bottles from their cellars. One of the best was the 2015 Lousas Parcela Camiño Novo from Envínate, which translates as “wine yourself”. The winery was co-founded by university friends Laura Ramos, Jose Martínez, Roberto Santana and Alfonso Torrente with their aim of focusing on single vineyard sites from different Spanish regions and applying non-interventionalist techniques. This cuvée comes from one of my favorite regions, Ribeira Sacra, mainly Mencía with some Alicante Bouschet, 100% whole bunch fermented and matured for 12 months in 500-liter used oak barrels. Even with several years on the clock, the bouquet is still very youthful, with crushed strawberry, raspberry, slate and subtle wilted rose petal aromas gaining intensity as it opens in the glass. The palate has exquisite balance, pliant tannins and impressive weight. Maybe because I was drinking it in Burgundy, I saw some stylistic comparisons with Pinot Noir in terms of its core of mineralité, yet with a little more sweetness on the finish. I was deeply impressed. This slow-maturing Mencía will offer another 15 years of drinking pleasure.