| Review: |
“I was blown away by the 2020 wines in barrel in June 2021 and found the 2020 Villa de Corullón very ready, open, expressive, floral and ethereal. It destroyed the idea I had of a warm and ripe 2020. Ricardo Pérez Palacios told me he was thinking of bottling the 2020s earlier, as they didn't need a long élevage, just nine or 10 months in barrel. The wine is pale, the palest Corullón ever, with 13.7% alcohol—perhaps the vines got blocked and didn't develop more color compounds or sugar. The wine makes me think of a red from Jura; it has a different profile and is more delicate, ethereal and full of light and energy. Pérez, who hates comparisons with other regions, couldn't stop saying that it felt like a Morey Saint Denis! It's all flowers and red fruit, with a lot of super fine tannins (the 2019 tannins are rougher) that are round and give it a velvety texture with no rusticity—elegant and balanced. There is a nice balance between tannin and acidity, something this has in common with the 2019, which makes the vintages quite unusual, because being warm, the wines show balance. Today, it feels more like Moncerbal than the Moncerbal bottling; nevertheless, Corullón is around 40% from Moncerbal. ... It has to be my favorite Corullón to date. 22,183 bottles and some larger formats produced. It was bottled in October 2021. They are bottling the wines from Bierzo earlier than ever, so I already tasted the 2020s in bottle for the region's article at the end of January 2022. I include those notes here for the completeness of the article, but now I only tasted the unbottled 2021s, from a very different year, which, according to Ricardo Pérez Palacios, was the most challenging year so far, a year when Mencía wouldn't ripen! I had already tasted some of those 2021s before, and back then, even if the wines were going through full malolactic, the Moncerbal already shone and felt to be among the finest vintages for this paraje. 2021 was an atypical year, cooler but with a warm and dry end of the season. They harvested some grapes at the end of August and then they had to stop ... because the grapes wouldn't ripen! So, Pétalos is only 13.5% alcohol. Some wines have a reductive character; it was a cooler and dry year, and the wines showed that character, continental and cold, despite the heat in July and August. The wines are juicy and aromatic, a lot fresher than they anticipated. The wines have contained alcohol (all around 13.5%) and a narrower profile. It should be a long-lived vintage, perhaps not as juicy as the 2018s, but with very good balance and freshness.” |