Case of Mengoba Godello Viejo 2024 | $60.00 per bottle

An old clone of Godello, raised in foudre — Bierzo's serious white.

Producer: Bodegas Mengoba (Grégory Pérez)
Region: Bierzo D.O., Castile and León, Spain
Grape Variety: 100% Godello
Viticulture: Lutte raisonnée, hand-harvested, en vaso and en espaldera
Alcohol: 13.5%
Production: 5,000 bottles
$60.00 per bottle | $360.00 case of 6

The Vibe

Most Bierzo Godello is made cold and quick in steel and drunk young. This is the other thing Godello can do. Pérez works an old clone of the variety — the viejo on the label refers to the plant material, not only to the age of the vines — and gives it the treatment usually reserved for a serious white Burgundy: wild yeasts, big neutral wood, ten months on fine lees in two 4,000-litre oval vats. No new oak, no fining away the texture. What comes out is broad, smoky and mineral, a white with weight and a slow reveal rather than a bright hello. Five thousand bottles.

The Taste

Pale straw, deceptively light in the glass for what follows. Grapefruit and yellow orchard fruit on the nose, wrapped in something flinty and struck-match, with hay and fennel underneath. The palate is where the foudre shows: real volume and a fine, chalky grip from the lees, savoury more than fruity, held taut by Godello's natural acidity. The finish is deep and earthy, faintly bitter in the way good Iberian whites are, and the perfume lingers well past the swallow.

The Story

Pérez learned vines before he learned oenology — at fourteen in the Bordeaux countryside, taught to prune by Guy Mallet of Château Lalande, whom he still calls his true master. Blanquefort followed, then Château Grand-Puy-Lacoste and Cos d'Estournel, then El Bierzo with Luna Beberide, where he made his name. Mengoba is the project he now runs for himself, built on the conviction he gave our team plainly: the wine has to reflect what the vineyard truly is, and that means making it as naturally as possible. The fruit here comes from small hand-picked parcels — clay-limestone soils at Valtuille and Villafranca, stony ground at Cacabelos — vinified separately from the estate's entry-level whites and given the time it needs.

Best Enjoyed With

Serve at 8–10°C, and give it a large glass; this opens over an hour. Made for fish stews, turbot or monkfish, roast poultry, jamón, wild mushrooms and aged or creamy cheeses. A wine for the table, not the aperitif hour.