2022 Raúl Pérez Ultreia Villegas

Raúl Pérez is without a doubt the most mediatized winemaker in all of Spain at the moment. However, his wines are almost impossible to find! Everyone talks about them, but few have tasted them. Raúl is present in countless appellations and regions, not only in Spain, but also in South Africa, Portugal, South America. The common thread in his work is the recovery of vieilles vignes of 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 prefer to make an undrinkably bad Galician wine, but at least let it be a Galician wine.' He has 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 very often fails. This way of working naturally gives him a great deal of experience, with which he is later able to get the most out of one grape variety or one region. Today he makes or helps make more than 80 wines. Finally, he has also recently settled down by growing two mini bodegas of his own: one in the Tierra de León region, in the village of Valdevimbre, and another in his native Bierzo, where he makes his own Ultreias, the absolute essence of Mencía, in the village of Salas de los Barrios. Raúl always works as purely as possible. He uses the minimum amount of SO2.

In all the wines that Raúl makes, he works with as little intervention as possible. For the reds, whole bunches are used and vinified in old barrels. Nothing is added or corrected. The wine is then aged, again in old barrels and also under flor (the barrels are not topped up). This flor gives the wine a natural protection against oxidation during the ageing and avoids the addition of sulphites. This flor is naturally present in the Ultreia cellars and Raúl uses it for both his white and red wines!

The new Ultreia Villegas comes from a part of the vineyard previously used for the Ultreia Valtuille, and they selected the sandy part to produce this bottling. The yield is very low and the grapes ripen slowly, so the wine has a moderate alcohol content of 13.08% with fantastic acidity. The nose is very expressive, with berries, herbs and spices, and the taste is soft and elegant, with a velvety texture and soft acidity. The tannins here are ultra-fine. The total harvest involved 3 used oak barrels of 225 liters and from these they produced around 1,000 bottles of this top wine.

FACT: The wine is in our conditioned Wine Warehouse and if you come to pick up the wine you will also receive a nice discount. We are almost next to the Rijksweg with plenty of parking. Click here for address