Vintage: 2021.
Grape variety: 85% mencia, 10% alicante Bouschet, 5% white grapes and others varieties.
Plots: Plot of the high sandy area of the place “La Cova de la Raposa”.
Soils: Sandy soils.
Age of vineyards: Vineyards over 100 years old.
Planting density: 4.000-5.000 plants per hectare.
Production density: 2.500 kilograms per hectare.
Climate: Continental and atlantic.
Anual production: 1.400 botellas
Alcohol content: 13%.
Wine description:
Valtuille _ La Cova de la Raposa is one of the unique wines of the winery. It is the first parcel wine Raúl Perez made in 2003.
This wine is classified as a vino de paraje, a new classification used to identify a wine that comes from grapes grown in a particular zone within a village – more specific than a village wine, but less so than a single vineyard.
The wine is the essence of its plot, 0,2 hectares, south facing and located on sandy soil in the upper area of the place to which it owes its name. The yield of the plot is very poor; some vines can produce only two bunches.
Characteristics of the vintage:
After a dry 2020, a rainy December gave away to a cold and dry January in which Philomena storm took place. In February, due to the high temperatures, the almond trees blossomed. From March to June it hardly rained and the temperatures were high.
This led to an advance in the budding of the vines and increase the risk of frost.
Summer arrived with a rainy June and a hailstorm at the end of the month.
As in 2018 vintage, the high summer temperatures motivated a lot of work in the vineyard, in order to save the vintage from the fungus.
July was once again dry, so much that as the harvest approached, the grapes reached a ripening point around 12 – 13% alc. vol., where they stopped and it was difficult to continue ripening.
We began the harvest on August 27th with the vineyards in full ripeness and not very high alcohol. We decided to use a larger part of whole grapes than in 2020 vintage and to macerate the wines for longer.
The vintage is similar to the 2018. The white wines are fresh and the reds show elegance, fruit and finesse.
Elaboration:
The harvesting of this wine is manual and it is carried out the first day of harvest of each year, being the first plot that is vintage in the Bierzo On arrival at the winery, we deposit 100% of the entire grape in open barrels of 500 liters.
The fermentation is done naturally without adding yeasts and without temperature control.
The wine macerates in the barrels for 60 days, in which the only job is to wet the hat once a day by gravity, without the intervention of pumps.
We devat and press the wine to let it rest one or two months.
After this, we introduce it in used barrels of 225 liters for a year.
