A BOTTLE WE LOVE
Veronica Ortega's 'Kinki'

A complex, chillable red from one of Bierzo's brightest 🌟

WHAT'S IN THE BOTTLE:

An organic blend of Mencía, Palomino, Godello, and Doña Blanca co-fermented 100% whole bunch, from a single old vineyard in the tiny town of Cobrana. On the cold, northern fringes of Bierzo DO, it's a rugged zone where altitude and a mix of blue slate and red clay soils express silky, fresh wines. After a long and gentle maceration in 5000L open-top wood tank, the wine is aged in 800L amphora under thick flor; the final wine is an almost-transparent pink.
 
It's made by Veronica Ortega, one of our favorite additions to the shelf (and brilliant visits!) from last year. (You can catch up in our Journal here.) After time working for a dizzying slate of prestigious producers (DRC, Comte Armand, Burn Cottage, and Priorat's Álvaro Palacios and Daphne Glorian), she felt drawn to Mencía's similarities to Pinot Noir and settled in Bierzo, of course working with local godfather Raúl Pérez.
 
She now farms her own 5 hectares of organic fruit, and the wines speak to her collective experience: beautifully merging the unmasked profiles of low-intervention with the fine-wine patience of elevage and oxygen.

WHY WE DIG IT:

It's a lower ABV, fresh bottle whose complexity perfectly captures the vibrancy of spring: lemony, bright red fruits with an herbal streak.
 
And like the rest of Veronica's wines (which we seriously cannot get enough of), it's underpinned by a saline electricity that calls to mind our favorite Galician producers. It also deftly leverages the power of flor which, if you haven't heard, is something we really, really dig.

HOW WE'RE DRINKING IT:

As an unexpected way to elevate a park picnic after taking in some peak bloom.