Valtuille Cepas Centenarias 2022
£49.58 (Inc. VAT bot. 75 cl.) / North Ireland
Bodegas y Viñedos Raúl Pérez
Bierzo
4 for immediate shipment. More, available on 10/09/2025
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2022 Valtuille Cepas Centenarias shows some more rusticity and is a little earthier and a bit leesy, with notes of cedar wood, pencil lead, licorice and a hint of leather. It has 13.36% alcohol with a pH of 3.66 and 4.48 grams of sugar. It has abundant, slightly dusty tannins and a chalky, earthy finish. 4,300 bottles and 36 magnums produced. It was bottled in May 2024 after one year in 225- and 500-liter barrels.
Features
Type of wine
Style
Occasions
Winery
Size
Country
Region
Appellation
Alcohol
14.0%
Description
In the heart of Bierzo, in the small village of Valtuille de Abajo, where the vineyards seem to speak in ancient whispers and the fog rolls in between vines more than a century old, this wine is born that is almost an act of resistance: Valtuille Cepas Centenarias. Raúl Pérez, legendary and wild figure of Spanish viticulture, signs this work with the temerity and intuition that have made him a beacon for a whole generation of winemakers. His nephew, César Márquez Pérez, follows in his uncle's footsteps but with a voice of his own, and this wine is the manifesto of that new vision.
There is no room for concessions here. The Mencía grapes come from plots planted between 1900 and 1910, at an altitude of over 500 metres above sea level, on soils of red clay, decomposed slate and pebbles. The vineyard, cultivated with an absolutely respectful philosophy -no herbicides, no chemicals-, expresses the rawness and poetry of the Bierzo terroir. The climate, with its balance between Atlantic freshness and continental dryness, allows for slow, refined ripening. Perhaps the bravest decision was not to intervene. To let the century-old vines speak without filters, with a husky and wise voice.
Winemaking
The manual harvesting of Valtuille Cepas Centenarias is almost surgical, selecting bunches of grapes with a devotion that borders on ritual. The grapes, mostly whole, ferment spontaneously with indigenous yeasts in open vats. No temperature control, no taming the wild. Some of the grapes are trodden with the feet, as before, as always. The maceration is prolonged, extracting noble tannins, while the wine breathes and forms slowly.
Valtuille Cepas Centenarias is aged for about 12 months in used French oak barrels of different sizes, which do not impose wood but allow a slow micro-oxygenation. It is not filtered or clarified. Bottling is almost a liberation: the wine comes out into the world as it is, naked and proud.
Taste
Valtuille Cepas Centenarias does not shout, but imposes silence. Its first impression on the nose is almost spiritual: ripe black fruit, wild cherry, macerated blackberries, but wrapped in an earthy halo, with notes of graphite, cold smoke, dried lavender and that unmistakable perfume of old wood that has housed many vintages.
On the palate, Valtuille Cepas Centenarias is pure contrast: silky entry but immediate tension, like a thread of steel running through the palate. There is volume, but no fat. The acidity is precise, restrained, sharp. The tannins are present but polished, almost caressing. A background of bitter cocoa, black tea, and dry spices (clove, pink pepper) melds with an electric minerality reminiscent of hot slate in the sun.
Valtuille Cepas Centenarias is a long, deep wine, but never heavy. Its finish is persistent, slightly saline, with that earthy echo that only old vines know how to leave.
A Mencía that renounces artifice to deliver a truth. It is not a wine for everyone, but for those who know how to listen, it has a lot to tell.
Shipping to North Ireland
50% discount on orders over £350.68Estimated transit time: 4-5 working days.
| Bottles | Price | Over £350.68 |
|---|---|---|
| 1-6 | £11.31 | £5.65 (-£5.65) |
| 7-12 | £15.34 | £7.67 (-£7.67) |
| 13-18 | £21.48 | £10.74 (-£10.74) |
| 19-24 | £29.37 | £14.68 (-£14.68) |
| 25-30 | £34.10 | £17.05 (-£17.05) |
| 31-36 | £38.14 | £19.07 (-£19.07) |
| 37-42 | £46.03 | £23.01 (-£23.01) |
| 43-48 | £50.41 | £25.20 (-£25.20) |
| 49-54 | £56.94 | £28.47 (-£28.47) |
| 55-60 | £61.19 | £30.60 (-£30.60) |
| VAT included | ||
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