Michelini I Mufatto “Motorpsico” Mencia 2023

A fun, delicious, light red wine that is fruit-driven and juicy with an upfront nose of wild strawberries and very easy on the palate. It’s linear and fresh, perfumed and delicious and has very fine, almost unnoticeable, lifted and elegant tannins. Perfumed and delicious. Lovely stuff!

“Motorpsico” is made mostly of Mencia grapes from the village of San Lorenzo, with about 30% white grapes in the blend (Palomino, Godello and Doña Blanca), and produced following the methods by which wine was produced in the village of Toral de los Vados, adding must without skins to produce a lighter red. Like all of Michelini I Mufatto's wines, it is foot-trodden, and the blends are co-fermented. The wine is then matured in 225-liter French oak barrels for one year.

Gerardo Michelini, his wife Andrea Mufatto and their son Manu farm their very old vines in Bierzo organically. Soils in the region are mostly clay with slate and quartz. In 2023, the summer was very warm, but rain before the harvest slowed things down and made things change. The wines have finesse, and they consider 2023 their finest vintage to date in Bierzo. They keep focusing on the vineyards, slowly recovering the old ones like Encinado.