A Merced 2017

Two plots that were bottled separately before now make a single cuvée. The 2017 A Merced includes grapes from a vineyard in San Lorenzo at 600 meters in altitude and another one in Valdecaña in Ponferrada at 700 meters in altitude on slate soils. I tasted two vintages of this, each with very different characteristics. 2017 was a low-yielding and dry year that was affected by terrible frost on the 27th of April, followed by hail 10 days later, and it finished very warm and dry, which resulted in very low yields. The wine fermented with 100% full clusters in tinaja with natural yeasts and matured in used 228-liter oak barrels for 20 months. 2017 was a warmer year, and the wine is a little riper and has a faint volatile touch. It has a little more tannin, perhaps from the long time in oak, finishing a little dry. This might need some more time in bottle and/or powerful food. 1,900 bottles produced. It was bottled in October 2019.