Our New Challenge
We’re excited to finally be able to share something a little bit special to us — our first-ever Mencía wine! Planted, grown, fermented and matured by us, off the beaten track in our hidden little valley. We were drawn to Mencía for its unique character and interesting history, but also because it presented a new challenge we were keen to have our best crack at.
New in Australia, a variety first planted in 2011, at the time of writing we count Australian 12 Mencías (including ours). Our Mencía is a special graft developed by Yalumba nurseries, tailored to work in our region.
We've found it quite a unique vine, requiring a different approach to pruning and canopy management to our other varieties to achieve the most from it. It has taken us years of small, unreleased batches to get to our first release. We’ve made plenty of mistakes along the way, but each one has taught us something valuable, leading to this finished product we couldn't be prouder of!
A Little About Mencía
Mencía is a grape traditionally grown in the mountainous regions of north-western Spain, particularly in the Bierzo and Ribeira Sacra regions. It's only been in recent years that Mencía has really gained attention outside of Spain, getting love for its versatility and unique flavour profile.
It’s known for its bright acidity, vibrant red fruit flavours, and subtle hints of spice and earth. Able to be transformed into anything from fresh rosés to intense oaked reds, we loved the flexibility this variety provides, but we are particularly interested in adding a new and complex medium bodied red wine to our line-up.
Bringing This Unique Variety To Eden Valley
Eden Valley shares some features of the terroir of the northwestern Spanish mountains, with some interesting differences that allow us to create our own unique sense of place.
At around 400m, our little valley shares a similar altitude to areas such as Puente de Domingo Flórez in Bierzo and Amandi in Ribeira Sacra. Both regions feature shallow soils with rocky sub-layers, with even Eden Valley's famed rocky outcrops paralleled in some of Mencía's first vineyards.
The regions see similar summer temperatures, and are both internationally classed as Cool Climate wine regions, though many of the Spanish Mencía regions receive above 800mm of rainfall, often above 1m per year, compared to our 600mm average rainfall. The Bierzo region sees lower rainfall but this is compensated by higher humidity. While the similarities make for a great match for Mencía in Eden Valley, the drier conditions give us an opportunity to develop a more concentrated version of the wine.
In the vineyard we have seen a range of differences to our other varieties, requiring us to greatly adjust our approach. We've found the canopy to be less vigorous than our other varieties, while growing grape bunches that are large and closely packed. This combo makes the bunches more visible and and good target for pests such as birds and light brown apple moth, producing lower yield and quality in our first years.
We have since changed up the pruning methodology to reduce the congestion of the bunches, spreading out spurs and reducing the number of canes. We follow this up later in the season by opening the canopy further with a modified Smart-Dyson system, splitting the canopy into a vertical upward and downward canopy and then being more fastidious on our netting to ensure our little feathered friends can't get amongst the vines. It's a lot of work, but we're now seeing the results, which certainly makes it all worthwhile.
After multiple years of fine tuning in the vineyard and winery, we now have a Mencia we are really proud of and are ready to release it to you. What we’ve created is hopefully a Mencía that’s true to its roots yet reflective of Eden Valley. The wine certainly has some body to it, with a bright fruit character but with more depth and complexity that shows our land’s distinct qualities.
As far as we're aware it's the first Mencía bottled from Eden Valley fruit, which is pretty fun.
Join Us in the Celebration
We wanted to do something different for this special occasion. We've decided to make it cheaper to try our new wine, with cash back for a quick review of our Mencía on the Vivino app. Seems like a good way to help each other out and we can't wait to hear your thoughts on our wine and to get the word out on this variety.
If you submit a review of our Mencía on Vivino within 180 days of your online order, contact us we'll credit $50 to the payment method you used when ordering (you can also visit us at our cellar door to receive your cash-back in cold, hard, cash).
Our Mencía is now available for purchase through our website and our cellar door. We hope you’ll join us in raising a glass to this new chapter in our winemaking story.
Sincerely,
Scott and Bec
