Michelini i Mufatto - Post-Crucifixión 2022

The elegant, aromatic, floral and mineral 2022 Post-Crucifixión seems to be unaltered by the extreme heat of the year. It's energetic, perfumed and floral, with notes of violets and rose petals. It comes from a tiny 0.25-hectare plot of ancient vines that is planted with a complex field blend dominated by Mencía but also includes Merenzao, Brancellao, Palomino and Godello in the village of Santalla del Bierzo, in a remote part of the appellation on clay and limestone soils that provide the wine with perfume and unusual finesse. It has the chalky texture of the limestone soils and a fine-boned personality; it's ethereal, with lots of energy and power but weightless. It has 13.2% alcohol, but parameters mean very little here—the wine has its own. It seems even more elegant and refined, and the nose is subtler and very fine, in a calmer way. It fermented with full clusters in a 1,000-liter tinaja with indigenous yeasts and matured in used 500-liter barrels for 18 months. This is nothing short of exceptional, especially for the character of the vintage. 800 bottles produced. It was bottled in February 2024.

The Michelini i Mufatto family from Mendoza keeps increasing their vineyards in Bierzo. They now have 9.2 hectares of vines around Ponferrada and are separating some of the plots and bottling more wines separately with references to the locations. They now produce around 50,000 bottles.

They only make red wines here, as the whites are sold through a personal project of Andrea Mufatto, called MA. The 2022s have a little more ripeness, reflecting the character of the warm and dry year, but the wines have freshness and balance and don't show any heat or excess. Some places take heat better than others, and Encinado and Post Crucifixión seem to be the two wines with more freshness. They have three new wines from 2022: a light red following ancestral methods of production and two "paraje" wines. I think the 2022s are a real triumph over the adverse conditions of the year.