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108 / the tasting panel / september 2016 quantity to Bierzo, which had become a region fraught with chemical processing and pushing out as much wine as pos- sible. The Mencías of Bodegas Pitticum are made in a more modern style. Their flagship wine, Pitticum, is made from old vines and is aged in both French and American oak. The Val de la Loba and Aurea are both full-bodied, made with specifically selected old vines. I meet Raúl Peréz in Ponferrada, where he makes wine in a very small, very old facility in the center of the tiny town. Peréz is the unequivo- cal rock God of Bierzo, and really, northwestern Spain. He grew up in the village of Valtuille de Abajo, making wine with his family at Castro Ventosa. These days he consults all over Bierzo and Galicia and is a close friend and admirer of Ricardo Perez. Peréz explains his philosophy about minimal interference with the wine. He says that his wine is made in the field, and he does as little as possible to the grapes before they make it into the bottles. He points out that his Ponferrada winery, which is really more of a big garage, is 500 years old and has never been anything except a winery. Because of this, he explains, the natural yeasts are ready and hungry for the grapes when they arrive after harvest. The Mencía produced by Peréz never meets a new oak barrel, and the wines currently aging in the winery have lots of potential. Many are currently labeled only as the vineyard from which they were harvested and will possibly be blended down the line. After tasting several barrels, it is easy to see why people respect this guy. In such youth, the 2015s we tried were exquisitely complex; savory and earthy, each expressive of the specific site from which they came. Discoveries in Valdeorras and Ribeira Sacra Further west, and into Galicia, the very picky white Godello grape grows. Not liking extreme conti- nental heat or damp Atlantic conditions, Godello thrives in few places, and none better than the schist-laden soils of the Valdeorras DO. The potential of Godello was realized by few, though in 1885, José Ramón Gayoso planted one of the first vineyards, Pedrouzos, which is still painstakingly main- tained today by his descen- dants, the Prada family at Bodegas Valdesil. The wines of Valdesil express the history of the pezas, or plots, from which they are harvested; they are complex and mouth-coating, with aging potential and strong finishes that leave you thinking about them long after they're gone. While the vineyard terrain in both Bierzo and Valdeorras is generally too steep to be accessible by machine, Ribeira Sacra's unique layout prevents it entirely. Only achieving DO status in 1997, steep, terraced valleys lining the Miño and Sil rivers make up five sub-zones and produce some of the most enticing Mencía available. Pedro Rodríguez is currently making wine for Guímaro in the Amandi subzone. I ask how many generations of his family have been making wine in Ribeira Sacra, and his response is only to look at me quizzically and say, "I have no idea; we've been doing this forever." He shows us some of his vineyards while we navigate the almost impossible terrain. He points out how fractured the parcels are, due to old Spanish inheritance laws, and explains how difficult it can be to obtain more desirable sites, even though many are completely abandoned. Rodríguez makes wine in a small basement winery below the house where his mother and grandmother live. While he gives us a tour, his mother comes to meet us, and carves house-cured jamón while we taste from barrels. I'm not sure I've ever had a wine and food pairing as spectacular as the barrel sampling of 2015 Meixéman and a big hunk of buttery jamón. The wines of Guímaro truly show what a special place Ribeira Sacra is, and what an incredible winemaker Rodríguez is. These wines are expressive in their fruit but bursting with secondary aromas of roasted peppers and ham. While some of us may have more access to Mencía and Godello than oth- ers, I'm sure no one is drinking quite enough of it. Borja Prada, Winemaker at Bodega Valdesil in the the Valdeorras DO. Pedro Rodríguez, Winemaker of Bodega Guímaro, and his mother.