Las Gundiñas 2021

The La Vizcaína de Vinos winery is the most recent winemaking project started up by Raúl Pérez; although, with his restlessness and intense curiosity, we are sure it won’t be the last one. The free spirit of Raúl Pérez works alongside his niece and nephew Nerea Pérez and César Márquez in this project as a homage to his late father by giving the winery the same name with which he used to market his wines: La Vizcaína de Vinos. They have made a strong commitment to local varieties, bringing out their typicity, and focussing on old vines, which are the best way to produce wines with local character, according to Raúl. Las Gundiñas is produced with a base of Mencia, and small amounts of other traditional varieties such as Trousseau (or Bastardo), Alicante Bouschet, and Doña Blanca, all of which thrive as hundred-year-old bush, or goblet, vines on clay and calcareous soils 500 metres up in the hillsides of Valtuille de Abajo. The local surroundings give an acidity which makes the wine assertive, yet not aggressive. Together with an elegant bitter touch, it means the wine is hard to place geographically even for experienced tasters. Its tightness and sobriety can invoke memories of Nebbiolo or even Sumoll reds. A certain wild touch to the wine ensnares the drinker, perhaps due to its production where whole bunches, stems and all, are fermented in open tanks. Its mineral, chalky, almost saline, tightness adds elegance to the more predictable wild fruit the wine offers. Cherries, blackberries, orange zest, fine smoky hints, and a handful of fine toasted spices remind the drinker of the wooden staves from the old barrels it is aged in. Thyme and freshness from coastal woodlands abound, blended in with the rigidity of shattered graphite, damp soil and fine blackcurrant skin tannins, thanks to its long maceration. Its body and character are ideal to make this a wine for keeping for years, but it is also warm enough to invite you to drink it immediately.