With its verdant beauty, rich cultural heritage, and spectacular seafood cuisine, Spain’s northwestern region of Galicia remains one of the world’s (largely) untouched treasures. While mostly known for Albariño, the signature red variety here is Mencía: This grape makes some truly delightful wines that evoke the perfume of great Burgundy, the pleasing earthiness of Loire Cabernet Franc, and the intense brambly fruit of top Cru Beaujolais. As for the price? It’s accessible to everyone, always, and that’s why it has rapidly become a favorite amongst sommeliers.

For me, it’s been uplifting to witness the elevation of Galician wines on a global scale but seeing Mencía, specifically, make it onto the podium is downright thrilling and well-deserved. Stylistically, there’s a wide range of expressions of the variety coming out of Valdeorras—which sits between Ribeira Sacra and Bierzo—and today’s harmonious wine stands out for its savory bottle age and lushness more than anything else. There’s so much freshness and vibrancy to the juicy wild berry fruit, and it’s all punctuated by a vein of saline- and crushed-rock minerality that gives it a distinctly Spanish flair. This small parcel is the last of the vintage, so grab it now or consider it gone for good!

Despite the deliciousness of today’s red, Bodegas Valdesil is best known for white wines: When the Valdeorras estate was founded in 2001 by the Prada family, their mission was to rehabilitate Galicia’s oldest parcels of the native Godello grape. They had been planted by their ancestor José Ramon Gayoso over 150 years ago, making them the oldest Godello vines in the world. Valdesil’s two bottlings of Mencía represent a tiny proportion of the winery’s production, but they are every bit as expressive and powerful as their renowned whites. Valdesil’s traditionalist winemaking philosophy is guided by biodynamic principles—the vineyards are never tilled, thick cover crops blanket the vineyard, yeasts are exclusively wild, and sulfur additions are kept to a bare minimum.

The fruit for the “Carballo” cuvée, which is only made in exceptional vintages, is harvested by hand from old vines on the slopes of the river Sil, ranging from 70-90 years of age. Nestled in the valley between Galicia’s highest mountains, Valdeorras is home to the most significant diurnal shift in the region, as well as the lowest rainfall. The resulting acidity combines with rugged, rocky schist-based soils to produce invigorating, mineral-laced tension in today’s wine. Valdesil practices organic winemaking, fermenting their “Valderroa Carballo” with indigenous yeasts before 16 months of aging in large, neutral French oak barrels. 

Right out of the gate, Carballo captivates with its inky crimson color, gleaming with flecks of violet in the glass, and from there it just continues to delight. The nose erupts with an intoxicating perfume of wild berries—huckleberry, blueberry, blackberry—followed by notes of wild mountain flowers, fragrant dried herbs, underbrush, crushed slate, and black licorice. On the palate, today’s wine is soft, silky, and energetic with beautiful aromatic intensity that reminds me of some of my favorite wines from Beaujolais and the Northern Rhône. Decant this gorgeous Mencía for 15 minutes and serve, just above cellar temperature, in large Burgundy stems. You can certainly pair it with caldo gallego, a traditional Galician pork and bean stew, for an authentic experience but it can also be matched with anything from chicken to burgers to lamb chops. You really just can’t go wrong here. Enjoy!