Happy Monday, dear Operatives, let’s grab this week by the horns, eh?

Like a matador grabbing a charging bull, we jumped on this WA 96-pointer! And for 36 bucks?! Just stuff your Lockers with what you can, we’ll be here to tell you the rest of the story…

Back? Good. Per Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate “The Luna Beberide family has been producing modern Bierzo wines since 1988 and Paixar was one of the first icons from Bierzo.”

Bingo, we say, that’s the one we have!

Spain has been going through a serious wine revolution and these days the results are eye-opening. Not only is quality through the roof, but prices are so real that they give many comparable fine wine regions a run for the money.

In this case, we’re in Castilla y León, where visionaries like Raúl Pérez, Peter Sisseck (Pingus), and Alvaro Palacios roam and excel year in year out with singular wines. Our superstar variety is Mencía – “Long in the shadow of better-known Spanish grapes, Mencía is finally gaining broader recognition thanks to investments in old vines and high-quality, terroir-driven winemaking” wrote SevenFifty last year.

Wine Spectator recently highlighted this up-and-coming region too, pointing out that “The best single-site versions show remarkable ability to express Bierzo terroir… ‘Today Bierzo is captained by that wave of young people who believed in our land, [this] unique place with centenary vines,’ says Alejandro Luna, who saw the trend for young winemakers to take control of family vines and turn them to quality production, as he did with his family winery, Bodegas Luna Beberide, beginning in 2001. The winery excels with its top red, the firm, focused Paixar.”

So here it is, in its sheer excellence, probably not for long.

96 Points – Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate

“The 2020 Paixar is the one wine from the portfolio that is completely different from the others and comes from high-altitude vineyards in the zone of Dragonte on slate soils. In 2020 and 2021 they used the whole field blend—reds and around 5% white grapes, which might have given it an extra spark of acidity. It matured in 5,000-liter oak vat and 500-liter oak barrels. It has a perfumed nose, elegant and floral, with good ripeness but without excess. It’s finely textured with a chalky thread and great balance. It finishes long and dry. This is truly superb and should evolve nicely in bottle. Drink 2023-2032.”