2006 Bierzo

2006 Luna Beberide Mencía, DO Bierzo.

After reading Asimov's piece about Bierzo, I was aching to taste. My first bottle of Bierzo, with high expectations.

In a word, disappointed. Big, hollow, confected fruit. Vulgar. Promises a lot, but completely dumps you. A whorish wine, but without the charm.

These producers that try to make fast money, by producing these wines in an 'International Style', are setting up for failure. These over-extracted, manipulated wines are everything that's wrong with the wine world. Awful.

Won't scare me away from trying more Bierzo, but I am really, really disappointed that Internationalism has reached what I thought was an ancient, tradition-bound region.