2022 Petalos, Descendientes de J. Palacios
When Álvaro Palacios and his nephew Ricardo Pérez arrived in Bierzo in the late 1990s, they found a region nobody was paying attention to and a grape, Mencía, that almost no one outside Spain could name. They settled in Corullón, a small town on the western edge of the appellation, where the soils are schist and the old vines cling to steep hillsides that look like transplanted Burgundy.
Pétalos was designed as the entry point to Bierzo, built from old-vine Mencía from across the western edge of the appellation, co-fermented with small amounts of the traditional white and red varieties the old vineyards always contained. The 2022 spent 10 months in barrel. It is juicy and round, with red fruit, rockrose, aromatic herbs, and the signature mineral freshness that Bierzo delivers at every price.