La Faraona 2023

The excitement of tasting a new vintage of La Faraona is hard to describe. The young, mysterious and insinuating 2023 La Faraona reveals an incredible nose of roses, violets, wild berries and herbs, curry and white pepper and an herbal twist of freshness, with incipient complexity and outstanding elegance. It's their highest altitude vineyard, planted with 83-year-old Mencía and 2% white grapes. The rain from the second week of September didn't do it any good, because it was still far from being harvested. It required a lot of manual work to keep all the bunches separate, never touching the ground, cleaning the vines manually one by one. It fermented with some full clusters in oak vats (they did close to five separate fermentations, because of the challenges with the harvest), and what made it to the blend matured in a 1,600-liter foudre for 11.8 months, longer than its siblings, and therefore was only bottled a few days before I tasted it in bottle. The final parameters are 13% alcohol and a pH of 3.71, but the pH does not reflect the sensation of freshness in the wine. There is no oak to be found in the aromas, and the tannins are as elegant, fine-grained and ethereal as I've ever seen in this wine. They got a good crop, even though they did a green harvest. This is powerful and concentrated, with a lot of energy and terrific balance. It's more approachable than Al Chelo but not as much as Moncerbal. 2,220 bottles produced. It was bottled in May 2025.

La Faraona is the highest vineyard on the estate, a distinctive sight on the slope viewed from the tasting room of the new winery. The wine has been maturing in a single foudre, gently recuperating from what proved to be a difficult vintage with rain risking mildew. La Faraona has the unique character of a volcanic fault running through it. Volcanic energy shows in bright red fruit and red gooseberry and currant aromas, the crisp, juicy freshness and firm tannins underpinning the complex palate. Very fine. This is a wine on its way to the top and scores will only go up. 98% Mencía with 2% white varieties.

Seductively inviting, the 2023 Faraona is a thing of beauty. At close to 900m, the 0.5ha vineyard is at the highest limit of viable viticulture in this zone. 83-year-old Mencía vines (with a little Palomino) are grown on intensely slatey soils on perilously steep slopes resulting in a steely, stony and austere wine that has impressive drive. Forest aromas abound with lavender, thyme and oregano that sit alongside pretty notes of rose and wild summer berries. The oak is already seamlessly integrated and fine while ripe tannins simply play a supporting role. The wine is velvety and refined, and despite being far from the finished product, it is already in a drinkable state, suggesting it will be the greatest of temptations not to drink too young! 2026-35