95 points Wine Advocate
The white Godello 2023 La Salvacion was produced with grapes from a one-hectare centenary plot in Arganza, the northernmost and cooler village in Bierzo, a plot on clay and slate that was regrafted from Mencia some 20 years ago. The destemmed grapes were pressed in a pneumatic press, and the juice fermented in 500-liter oak barrels after setting for 24 hours. It matured in those barrels for one year, with the lees but without batonnage. It has 13% alcohol, a pH of 3.07 and 7.25 grams of acidity, meaning good ripeness and very good freshness and acidity. It's vibrant and very tasty, piercing and pungent, with a nice compromise between power and elegance. It's more direct, sharp and tasty but with restraint; it takes time to open up in the glass. 6,700 bottles produced. It was bottled in January 2025.
Cesar Marquez Perez, Raul Perez's nephew, is one of the most precise winemakers in Bierzo with the family Castro Ventosa range and his personal project, which he started in 2015. In the 2023 vintage, he is releasing a new wine from the Villegas area, a lieu-dit in Valtuille on sandy soils. The single-vineyard wines are aging in increasingly larger oak containers, combining 1,200-liter vats with 500- and 600-liter barrels. He owns 7.2 hectares and works a further seven with local growers across Bierzo, from altitudes ranging between 450 to 850 meters above sea level. His production is slowly growing, and he now crafts 60,000 bottles per year.
As he told me while tasting the wines from the family winery, Castro Ventosa, which he also vinifies, "2023 was a cooler vintage with rain at the beginning of the harvest. The wines have a floral, serious and elegant profile with a contained alcohol content of 12.5% to 13%." These are some of the finest and more elegant wines he has produced so far.
PJ01985
Spain
Galicia
Red
2023
.750L
