| 97+ |
The Wine Advocate |
The second vintage of the single-vineyard wine from Dragonte is the 2023 Paixar Viña de Vaca, sourced from a small plot that was planted 90 to 100 years ago on slate soils at 800 meters above sea level on a steep slope surrounded by chestnut trees. It fermented in an oak foudre with indigenous yeasts and foot-trodden grapes and matured in a 500-liter barrel for 12 months. I've never smelled a wine like this from Luna Beberide. It's an explosion of flowers and wild herbs, bright and high-pitched, nuanced, elegant and complex. It has contained ripeness, 13% alcohol (lower than in 2022), and a pH of 3.36 and 5.16 grams of acidity. The palate is super elegant and fine-boned, precise and fresh, with a spark that I didn't see in any other wine. Bravo! Only 574 numbered bottles were produced and filled in March 2025. As they keep recovering the vines, they hope to slowly increase the volumes. 2026 – 2036
Luis Gutierrez, The Wine Advocate Jul 10, 2025 |
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| 97 |
Wine Review Online |
“This is one of two new renditions of “Paixar,” one of the top wines of Bierzo, and all of Spain, for that matter, stretching back to the inaugural vintage of 2001. I have tasted almost every vintage (probably all of them, but leaving room for error). Both of them—this bottling and the “A Sierra”—are sleeker in profile than most vintages of their predecessor, which could be quite concentrated and loaded with flavor impact. This wine offers nearly as much flavor impact and every bit as much detail at this early stage in its development, but with less physical weight. This is the brighter of the two, with very fresh acidity enlivening the flavors, which recall black cherries above all, with a mixture of red and black berry notes riding underneath. Really only medium-bodied, it shows relatively little overt oak but lots of vibrant fruit with excellent linear energy making for a very long, symmetrical finish. The fruit comes from a total of 950 vines in Dragonte, Corullón, that were planted in 1910 at an elevation of nearly 3,300 feet. I love the detail it shows along the way, and at this lighter weight, the point of comparison that first occurs to me is not Côte-Rôtie from the northern Rhône, but rather fine red Burgundy. This is still a wine unto itself, but that comparison may prove helpful for those new to this wine—as is admittedly true for me”.
Michael Franz, May 29,2025 |
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| 96 |
View from the Cellar |
The Paixar Viña de Vaca is a new bottling, hailing from even older Mencía vines than the
A Serra, as these vines were planted all the way back in 1910! The production from Viña de Vaca
used to be blended together with that of the A Serra, but as the former has a due south exposition and A Serra faces north, the two parcels are making their debuts as separate cuvées in 2023. This is an extremely limited bottling, as only fifty-six cases were produced from these ancient vines, planted on steep slate and crumbling granite slopes. It too is raised in a one year-old five hundred liter cask. The 2023 Viña de Vaca comes in at an even thirteen percent alcohol and delivers a simply stunning aromatic constellation of dark berries, cassis, coffee grounds, woodsmoke, botanicals, tree bark, slate soil tones, a touch of roasted meats and a discreet foundation of cedary oak. On the palate the wine is deep, pure, full-bodied and complex, with a superb core of old vine fruit, brilliant soil signature, fine-grained tannins, tangy acids and precise focus on the long, complex and seamlessly balanced, youthful finish. There is almost a touch of the medicinal tones one finds in young Hermitage here. The wine is properly structured and is going to need cellaring time to soften up, but it is going to be outstanding. 2038-2075+.
John Gilman, Issue 117, May– June 2025 |
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Paixar Vina de Vaca