2022 Raul Pérez El Castro de Valtuille Joven

Raúl Pérez is without a doubt the most mediatic winemaker in all of Spain today. However, his wines are almost impossible to find! Everyone talks about it, but few have already tasted them. Raúl is present in numerous appellations and regions, not only in Spain, but also in South Africa, Portugal, South America.

We have been following Raúl since 2000; at that time he was still working as an oenologist at the Castro Ventosa family estate in Valtuille de Abajo. He also worked as an oenologist-consultant for other domains in Bierzo. He refined the Mencia to unprecedented heights, also helped Ricardo and Alvaro Palacios start their top domain, while constantly tasting and trying other wines from around the world. Raúl is a restless nature and his curiosity and passion take him further and further.

Between 2005 and 2007 he left the family domain and left for a wine odyssey. In a few years he made a name for himself and became a real 'star' in the wine world. The common thread in his work is the recovery of vieilles vignes from indigenous grape varieties and the making of authentic wines with a lot of character and personality. Or to put it in his own words, "I'd rather make an undrinkably bad Galician wine, but at least let it be a Galician wine." He has therefore already vinified dozens of wines in countless different regions (mostly in the northwest of Spain, and also beyond), but which have never been marketed. He tests, he tries, and often fails. Of course, this way of working brings him a lot of experience, with which he will later be able to get the most out of one grape variety or one region.

Today he makes or contributes to more than 80 wines. In the end, he more or less settled himself by renovating two of his own mini-bodegas: one in the Tierra de León region, in the village of Valdevimbre, and another in his native Bierzo, where he is in the village of Salas de los Barrios. own Ultreia's, the absolute essence of Mencía. Raúl always works organically and as pure as possible. It uses the minimum of SO2. The wines we get from him are always in minimal quantities and we hardly ever know what we are going to get, from what year and how much ... That is Raúl in all.