VILLAFRANCA, SPAIN — THE cobblestone streets of the village of Hornija follow the slopes of the hills in this remote corner of Spain's Bierzo region -- which is to say they are steep, uneven and treacherous. Here, piles of stones pass for houses. A crude communal laundry pool and a dilapidated bread oven constitute the medieval hamlet's central square.
The evidence that this forgotten land was once a thriving crossroads dots the surrounding slate-soil hillsides: acres of vineyards planted with shrubby 100-year-old vines of Mencia grapes, the descendants of vines brought to the region by 10th-century French monks. The wines now being made from those old vines are the bridge from ancient to modern Spain.
Racy, red Mencia wines from Bierzo are the new darlings of America's wine intelligentsia. Sommeliers and other adventuresome wine lovers are drawn to their distinctive fresh fruit flavors and food-friendly acidity. And with most Mencia wines priced $20 or less, says Anne Pickett, Spanish wine buyer for K&L Wine Merchants in Hollywood, the wines are an affordable discovery.
It's just the latest chapter in the revival of Spanish winemaking, itself part of the economic rebirth of the country after the death in 1975 of Fascist dictator Francisco Franco. Throughout the country, winemakers have nursed old vineyards back to life, their efforts typically resulting in high quality yet inexpensive wines. A few artisans have discovered vineyard gold in forgotten corners of the country. Bierzo is such an El Dorado.
But, says Bierzo's pioneering winemaker, Alvaro Palacios, whose single-vineyard La Fararona Mencia is among the most expensive wines in Spain today at $225 a bottle, "You are never a prophet in your own land." Old-vine Mencia wines, an emerging phenomenon internationally, are almost unknown in Spain. Even in nearby Leon, it is difficult to find the wines on store shelves or in tapas bars.
The Mencia puzzle
MENCIA is a mysterious grape, says Steve Zamotti, one of the owners of Wine Exchange, a wine store in Orange. Zamotti has carried Mencia wines since the release of the 1999 Descendientes de J. Palacios Corullon, produced by Alvaro Palacios. That wine inaugurated the new wave of wines made from the low-yielding, untrellised Mencia vines clinging to the hillsides of Bierzo.
Mencia was once thought to be related to Pinot Noir because of its complexity and lilting acidity, then to Cabernet Franc because of the wine's intense, inky concentration. Today, it is simply assumed to have originated somewhere in Central Europe. "It's been in this region for a thousand years. Whatever it started out as, it's now considered unique to Bierzo," Zamotti says. That makes it the ultimate wine for those, including himself, whom Zamotti calls "wine geeks."
"We try all kinds of wines. And these are really interesting. Mencia has characteristics of both red Burgundy and cool-climate Syrah from the Rhone Valley, but it's its own thing -- soft tannins, snappy acidity, pleasing texture, fresh fruit."
Palacios, Bierzo's best-known winemaker, is the son of a venerable Rioja wine family and one of the original band of modern vintners in Spain's Priorat region near Barcelona. His single-vineyard Garnacha wine, L'Ermita, is that region's most critically praised. When his nephew, winemaker Ricardo Perez, suggested he visit Bierzo, a region with schistose soils, steep hillsides and old vines similar to those in Priorat, Palacios saw past the region's poverty and isolation and realized that its ancient vineyards could be an oenological treasure trove.
He immediately began buying and leasing Mencia vineyards and, with his nephew, transformed an old garage in the village of Villafranca into a winery. Palacios was intent on proving that Mencia wines could be as lilting and ethereal as fine Burgundy.
Skeptics in the Spanish wine industry dismissed the scheme as slightly insane. Sure, Palacios' old-vine Garnacha and Carinana wines from Priorat had earned critical raves and were terrific commercial successes. But Mencia? There is no history of quality wine from the Mencia grape being produced anywhere in the world. In Bierzo, its continuing cultivation was tied up with centuries-old traditions unchallenged in the economically depressed region. The mere mention of the awful plonk associated with the decrepit cooperatives in this long-ignored northwestern corner of Castilla y Leon made Spaniards elsewhere shudder.
Artisans are buying in
