Jose Antonio Garcia Bierzo "Unculin" Mencia 2021

Jose Antonio García and his wife Julia Peña García (together they are G²) are at the forefront of the next-generation of vignerons in Bierzo, leading the change towards wines of place and definition. Their familial roots in Bierzo are fundamental to them, as they do all of the work in the vineyards themselves. Jose’s mother is a native of Valtuille de Abajo, and his father is a native of Corullón. Together, Jose and Julia’s families have owned vineyards in Bierzo for generations, providing wines that would become the backbone of other famous blends, but never bottling for themselves. Like many families who left the countryside for better opportunities in the cities, Jose spent his formative years in Barcelona where he worked in restaurants and gained valuable perspective and experience with fine wine. In 2009, Jose returned to recuperate his family's vineyard holdings in the tiny village of Valtuille de Abajo. In the spirit of elevating their family holdings and with an inexhaustible work ethic, Jose and Julia set out recuperating historic vineyards by hand, recovering them one by one from the stranglehold of wild ivy. A monumental work, considering the 22ha they own and the fact that they are doing all of the work themselves. In the same way, working out of a tiny, crumbling building hundreds of years old in Valtuille de Abajo, Jose and Julia have brought the structure back to life by hand, stone by stone, building new walls and a new future from the rubble of previous generations. He performs all the work in the vineyard and winery manually, with minimal intervention and input. Jose is a proponent of organic viticulture (notably they use the plentiful bounty of local walnut shells as fertilizer in the vineyard) and he is also an avid user of natural, indigenous yeasts for his fermentations.

Bierzo, Castilla y Leon, Spain

Mencía

Minimal intervention, organic viticulture, native yeast.