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Luna Beberide Art

"The wine is pure Mencía...The fruit is black rather than red, ripened to perfection, with a serious and classical profile...This has all the ingredients and balance for a nice development in bottle." —

Luis Gutiérrez, Robert Parker's Wine Advocate

Winery

LUNA BEBERIDE, BODEGAS y VINEDOS

Appellation

Bierzo D.O.

Grape(s)

100% Mencia from low yielding (25 hl/ha) 70-80 year-old vines

Altitude/Soil

700-900 meters / calcareous clay and decomposed slate over mother rock

Farming Methods

Practicing organic, Vegan

Harvest

Hand harvested into small boxes from steeply sloping vineyards called laderas

Production

Fermented in temperature controlled stainless steel tank with native yeasts

Aging

Aged for 12 months in used 5,000 L Foudres and 500 L French oak barrels

Suggested Retail Price

$65

Wine Name

Scores

Downloads

Reviews

Luna Beberide Art 2012

92 (VfC) 92 (RP) 92 (VM) 91 (WS)

Score	Publication	Review	Copy
92	View from the Cellar	The 2012 vintage of Art from Luna Beberide is developing very nicely at age five, but still in the midst of fully absorbing its new wood and could use with a bit more bottle age to fully integrate its oak tannins on the backend. The bouquet is showing nice signs of secondary complexity in its blend of sweet cassis, pomegranate, graphite, incipient notes of tree bark, slate soil tones, a touch of chicory and cedary oak. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied and starting to show a nice touch of sappiness at the core, with fine focus and grip and a long, moderately tannic finish. This is making good progress on managing its new oak and should be excellent. 2019-2040+.
92	The Wine Advocate	No wonder the 2012 Art came at the top of what I tasted from Luna Beberide. It is pure Mencía from south-facing vineyards on slate soil which fermented with indigenous yeasts, aged for 18 month in French oak barrels and was bottled unfiltered into 12,500 bottles. It has a harmonious nose with well-integrated oak aromas and a core of red and black fruit that is fresh and quite lively. The palate is medium-bodied and very balanced with good acidity and a seriousness that hints at a very long life in bottle even though it's already very approachable.
92	Vinous Media	Deep ruby. Deeply pitched aromas of ripe black and blue fruits, incense, licorice pastille and vanilla bean. Fleshy and broad on the palate, offering sweet boysenberry and cherry compote flavors that stretch out and become spicier with aeration. Supple tannins provide shape and grip to a very long, spice-accented finish shaped by smooth, slow-building tannins. This sexy, fruit-driven wine spent 18 months in new French oak before being bottled. 2019 – 2025
91	Wine Spectator	Kirsch and blackberry notes are racy and perfumy in this expressive red. Licorice, espresso and wild herb accents add interest. Balsamic acidity and slightly chewy tannins impart structure. Exotic. Mencía. Drink now through 2025.

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Luna Beberide Art 2013

93 (WRO) 92 (RP) 90-92+ (VfC)

Score	Publication	Review	Copy
93	Wine Review Online	Luna Beberide's "Art" bottling of Mencía is always very good, even if over-shadowed by Paixar, another wine made at this bodega but in collaboration with Eduardo and Alberto García. I opened the 2013 releases of these two wines at the same time, and at the very outset, "Art" was just as appealing in overall terms, which is pretty damned impressive. Quite deeply colored (actually slightly more deeply pigmented to my eye than the Paixar), it showed complex aromas and layered flavors with very good integration of oak. Light mineral tinges in the finish were very appealing, and there was more than enough persistence to the fruit flavors (black plum and Bing cherry) to outlast the tannins and wood. The Paixar surpassed "Art" when its minerality kicked into high gear with aeration, ultimately becoming considerably more intricate, but this is still a terrific wine that will be much easier to find and $30 less expensive. If you see it, buy it. Michael Franz; July 25, 2017
92	The Wine Advocate	The top of the range is the 2013 Art, pure Mencía from a cool vintage. This has a classical nose of the 1990s style of concentrated and generously oaked reds, quite exuberant, full of spices and ripe berries, a little backward and also quite young. The palate is medium to full-bodied, with good concentration, abundant, fine-grained tannins and good underlying acidity. This has the stuffing to age nicely, you feel the intensity and balance of the old vines. 12,500 bottles produced. Issue #224, April 2016
90-92+	View from the Cellar	The Art bottling of Mencía from Luna Beberide is all comprised of fruit from seventy to eighty year-old vines, planted on slate soil and cropped at very low yields. The wine is fermented with indigenous yeasts and aged entirely in new French oak for eighteen months prior to bottling. The 2013 version has gorgeous depth of fruit and excellent soil signature, but it is still young and a bit dominated by its spicy new oak component, though the balance here seems promising and I would imagine it will eventually absorb the new wood and blossom nicely. Today, the fairly new oaky nose offers up scents of dark berries, pomegranate, lead pencil, slate and spicy new oak. On the palate the wine is pure, full-bodied and shows marvelous mid-palate depth, with the inherent elegance of Mencía still very much in evidence. The finish is long, moderately tannic and focused, with a bit of oak still sticking out on the backend, but the pieces in place to eventually settle in and offer up some very good drinking. If the wine eventually seamlessly absorbs the new wood, my score will seem conservative, as there are superb raw materials under the new casks! 2020-2045. Jan/Feb 2017 Issue

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Luna Beberide Art 2016

93 (JS) 93 (I-WR) 92 (RP) 92 (VM)

Score	Publication	Review	Copy
93	JamesSuckling.com	Strawberries and raspberries, dusted in pepper and spices. The palate has a supple and even paced feel with plenty of flesh and bright, approachable blue-fruit flavors. Silky. Drink or hold. August 2018
93	International Wine Review	This 100% Mencia is sourced from 70-80 year-old vines from nearly all slate soil. It offers rich and concentrated black fruit with floral traits and minerals. Aged 12 months in 100% new French oak. Sourced from 70-80 year old vines on slate soil at 800+ meters altitude. "Spanish Wines of Value and Quality" - June 20, 2019
92	The Wine Advocate	I tasted the 2016 and 2017 vintages of the cuvée they call Art. The 2016 Art was lighter and subtler, and the ripeness felt more contained, giving notes of red fruit rather than black and some citrus freshness (think orange peel) with some spicy and creamy notes that give it a more commercial profile. The oak was also more evident, and I felt the wine was more marked by the élevage. This was bottled after 11 months in French oak barriques. 15,000 bottles produced. Drink Date 2019 - 2023 Issue 241; February 28, 2019
92	Vinous Media	Opaque ruby. Powerful, mineral-laced dark berry, incense and floral pastille scents show excellent clarity and are complemented by a hint of succulent herbs. Concentrated yet lithe, offering palate-staining boysenberry, bitter cherry and allspice flavors and a spicy jolt of white pepper. The mineral quality repeats emphatically on a very long, penetrating finish that leaves sweet dark fruit liqueur and spicecake flavors behind. (Raised in new French oak barrels for a year.) Drink 2019-2025 Spain’s Northern Regions Keep it Cool – March 2019

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Luna Beberide Art 2017

93 (RP) 93 (VM) 93 (VfC) 93 (WRO)

Score	Publication	Review	Copy
93	The Wine Advocate	I found heady notes of violet pastille in the nose of the 2017 Art, which felt very young and undeveloped but seemed to have more fleshy fruit than the 2016 I tasted next to this, and the oak felt better integrated and less obvious here. It has a plump palate with glossy tannins and juicy fruit with acid berry freshness and tasty flavors. 13,000 bottles produced. Drink Date 2019 - 2024 Issue 241, February 28, 2019
93	Vinous Media	Vivid ruby-red. Mineral- and smoke-accented red fruit liqueur and pot-pourri aromas are complemented by suggestions of cola, vanilla and candied licorice. Sweet, seamless and focused on the palate, offering intense black raspberry, cherry compote and spicecake flavors that become livelier with air. Shows impressive detail, depth and finishes on a repeating red fruit note, with smooth tannins and lingering florality. (Aged for a year in new French oak barrels.) Drink 2023-2032 Spain’s Northern Regions Keep it Cool – March 2019
93	View from the Cellar	2017 Art bottling of Mencía from Luna Beberide is from even older vines than the Finca la Cuesta, as these vineyards are eighty to ninety years of age, planted at eight to nine hundred meters above sea level and on an almost pure base of slate, so this is much more Ribeira Sacra-like in its soil composition than most of the vineyards in Bierzo. The wine undergoes its malo in barrel and is raised in a combination of a few new French demi-muids and older two hundred and twenty-five liter barrels. It spends just over a year in cask prior to bottling. The 2017 Art is pretty ripe for this bottling, coming in at fourteen percent in this vintage and delivering a superb, old viney nose of sweet cassis, pomegranate, graphite, a beautiful base of slate minerality, cigar smoke, wild fennel, a touch of tree bark and a deft foundation of cedary oak. On the palate the wine is deep, precise and full-bodied, with a great core of fruit, fine soil signature, ripe, suave tannins and excellent focus and grip on the long, polished and complex finish. This is more refined in personality than the Finca la Cuesta bottling, with the same fine depth, but more a more elegant personality. First class juice. 2023-2050. Issue # 85 - January/February 2020
93	Wine Review Online	This excellent producer has turned in a wonderful performance with this wine in 2017, making a rich and generous rendition that displays the warmth of the growing season while still retaining the freshness that makes old vine, high-elevation Mencía so exciting. Deeply pigmented and medium-plus in body, this has already soaked up almost all the overtly oaky notes from its upbringing, with only some lovely spice notes showing at this point, accenting the black cherry and red berry fruit (plus the lightest touch of wood tannin providing just a bit of extra grip in the finish). Sip after sip, it shows virtually perfect balance between ripe fruit and bright acidity, and also between textural softness and structural spine for future development. My guess is that both 2016 and 2018 will ultimately be regarded as great vintages in Bierzo that will somewhat surpass 2017, but both will take longer to reveal all their charms, whereas this wine is already fantastic, and will surely get even better for another five years. Michael Franz - August 25, 2020

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Luna Beberide Art 2018

94 (VM) 93+ (RP) 92 (W&S) 90 (VfC)

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Shelf Talker

Fact Sheet

Score	Publication	Review	Copy
94	Vinous Media	Lurid ruby. Highly expressive red and blue fruit aromas display excellent delineation and pick up floral and exotic spice nuances with aeration. Juicy and vibrant on the palate, offering sweet boysenberry and bitter cherry flavors that show strong tension, underscored by a vein of smoky minerality. Delivers outstanding delineation and spicy fruit thrust on the impressively long, floral-driven finish, which is given shape by smooth, harmonious tannins. Aged in a combination of new and used French oak barrels. 2023 – 2032 Josh Raynolds – June 17, 2021 Atlantic Spain: It’s Always About the Weather…
93+	The Wine Advocate	A little more classical and varietal than the super floral Finca Luna Beberide but also showing how good 2018 has been at this address, the 2018 Art combines the textbook notes of licorice, wild berries, plants and flowers with a deft touch of spices and smoke. This comes form very old vines and matured in barrique for 14 months, yet the oak does not play a role in the aromatics or flavors—it feels completely integrated and neatly folded into the fruit. 12,500 bottles produced. It was bottled in March 2020. Issue #249 - June 2020
92	Wine & Spirits Magazine	Alejandro Luna grows this fruit on south-facing hillsides ranging from 2,300 to 2,950 feet in elevation, the vines more than 60 years old. With 16 months in French oak barrels, the wine has grown supple and round, showing some notes of butterscotch over the black-skinned-blueberry flavors. It’s high-toned and lasting, delicious with roast duck. Joshua Greene – August 2021
90	View from the Cellar	The 2018 vintage of Luna Beberide’s Art bottling is an outstanding example of old vine Mencia (the vines are seventy to eighty years of age), with the wine aged for fourteen months entirely in new French Burgundy barrels. The bouquet offers up a pure and complex blend of cassis, dark berries, tree bark, dark soil tones, a touch of smoked meats, black tea, licorice, slate and a nice touch of spicy new oak. On the palate the wine is full-bodied, deep and nicely structured, with a good core, excellent soil signature and grip, chewy tannins and a long, complex and very promising finish. Because of the utilization of all new casks here, this wine still needs some extended time to fully integrated its oak tannins on the palate before it will start to drink well. However, it should have the stuffing to carry the wood in due course and should be very tasty. But, that said, there are some serious oak tannins here still be absorbed and this wine really does not gain anything from all new wood- raise it in one wine barrels next time and it will not require a period of hibernation before one can get into all this great, old vine complexity! 2026-2055+. John Gilman - Issue #91 / February 2021

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Luna Beberide Art 2020

94 (RP) 94 (VfC) 93 (WRO)

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Shelf Talker

Fact Sheet

Score	Publication	Review	Copy
94	The Wine Advocate	The 2020 Art from Luna Beberide has the name "La recuperada" on the label, which is the name of the vineyard (the recovered one), the one with the highest altitude in the Finca de Valdetruchas, more or less at about 750 meters in elevation, on calcareous clay. The wine matured in 5,000-liter oak vats and 500-liter oak barrels for 12 months. It's young and brooding, with black berries and wild herbs, a touch of spice and abundant, fine-grained tannins, more elegant than those from the Finca. It's medium ripe with 13.5% alcohol and very good freshness, something I have seen improving in the Luna Beberide wines in the last few years. 12,500 bottles were filled in November 2021. 2022-2028 Luis Gutiérrez – January 2022
94	View from the Cellar	All of the vines used for the Art bottling from Luna Beberide are seventy to eighty years of age, planted on a hillside of chalky clay and decomposing slate over a base of hard rock. The wine is raised in a combination of five thousand liter foudres and five hundred liter casks for one year. The 2020 version is an absolutely superb young wine, offering up a very precise bouquet of sweet dark berries, bonfire, pomegranate, dark, stony soil tones, tree bark, discreet botanicals, espresso and a deft framing of cedary oak. On the palate the wine is deep, pure and full, with a rock solid core of fruit, superb mineral drive, ripe, firm tannins, tangy acids and a long, nascently complex and soil-driven finish of impeccable balance. This is a great wine in the making, though it does have a bit of oak tannin on the backend that will need some hibernation time to integrate completely. 2030-2080. John Gilman – Issue 98 March/April 2022
93	Wine Review Online	Of all the vintages of this wine that I’ve tasted (and I believe I’ve tasted all of them), this 2020 comes the closest to Luna Beberide’s flagship “Paixar” release (drawing dead even when I turned from sensory evaluation to scoring, but with Paixar pulling ahead the next day after holding up extremely well overnight). “Art” is crafted from very old vines (70 to 80 years) growing at high elevations (2,000 to 2,700 feet), and the physical density of the finished wine shows the resultingly low yields. Oak is quite muted in this release, giving the wine a soft, rounded feel without lacking freshness, and likewise without lacking for tannic spine. In both texture and flavor, this is much more inviting and evolved than its vintage suggests, and is already extremely enjoyable, though it will easily improve for another five years — at an absolute minimum. Michael Franz – April 5, 2022 Todays Featured Wine

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Luna Beberide Art 2021

95 (WRO) 94 (VfC) 94 (RP)

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Fact Sheet

Score	Publication	Review	Copy
95	Wine Review Online	The 2021 Mencía-based releases from Luna Beberide are smashingly good and dangerously delicious even in their youth, without seeming "played out" or "dumbed down." This wine fits that description perfectly, and is among the best releases of “Art” yet to be issued by the bodega, and surely the fastest out of the starting blocks for sheer enjoyability. Sourced from low-yielding vines averaging around 75 years of age, this emits a lot of aroma and flavor for its weight, which is really just medium-bodied and notably lighter than some previous vintages of this wine. A lighter, fresher style has also marked the top-of-line “Paixar” release (one click up from this bottling) during the past couple of vintages, making the change seem deliberate. I don’t particular favor or disfavor the seemingly new style, as these 2021s are indisputably outstanding. (Still, anyone who has ever tasted Paixar from 2001 or 2004, for example, will share my ambivalence.) Under Bierzo’s new classification system, this (like the Finca Luna Beberide bottling from 2021) is a “Vino de Paraje” from the Valdetruchas site in the village of Villafranca del Bierzo. I will publish a lengthy column before long outlining this new classification system within the Bierzo D.O., which is very interesting and helpful, but requires some explanation. Before that column appears, and within it, and also after it, I’ll also publish a whole slew of reviews from an intensive tasting trip from March of this year. But to return to this wonderful wine, it shows more spice and overall complexity from a slightly stronger dose of oak aging than the Finca Luna Beberide release from this vintage, but not enough to lead almost anyone to characterize it as “oaky,” as the old-vine fruit easily outruns the wood notes all the way through the finish, with not one particle of wood tannin outlasting the fruit flavors or grape tannins. Although ripe and soft in flavor and texture, it is still adequately structured, and even at this tender age, the wine is so well integrated that one doesn’t really experience the fruit, acidity, oak or tannin as distinct elements, but rather as interwoven strands of a multicolored garment. This will seem a little light for $65 wine to some consumers, but those same consumers would probably consider a similarly styled but less complex Volnay from Burgundy a little light for $130. Take your pick. Michael Franz – Oct 10, 2023.
94	View from the Cellar	This is the top of the line bottling from one of my absolutely favorite producers in Bierzo, Luna Beberide. The wine is made entirely of Mencía, with the vineyards now eighty years of age, planted on clay and weathered slate topsoils over a hard foundation of slate subsoil. The wine is aged for one year in a combination of foudres and five hundred liter French oak puncheons. The 2021 Art comes in at 13.5 percent alcohol and offers up an absolutely stunning bouquet of dark berries, pomegranate, graphite, dark, stony soil tones, espresso, woodsmoke, a touch of tree bark and a beautiful topnote of gentle, sweet botanicals. On the palate the wine is deep, pure and full- bodied, with a superb core of fruit, fine mineral undertow and grip, fine-grained, ripe tannins and outstanding focus and balance on the long, complex and seamless finish. This is so beautifully balanced that it is drinkable out of the blocks, but it is still very much in its primary stage of development and truly deserves some time in the cellar to allow its secondary layers of complexity to fully emerge. It is a superb bottle of old vine Bierzo Mencía! 2032-2075+. John Gilman, January - February 2024
94	The Wine Advocate	The 2021 Art from Luna Beberide was produced with grapes from a single vineyard, La Recuperada, that is in the process of being certified organic. It fermented in stainless steel and matured in 500-liter oak barrels for 12 months. It's floral, perfumed and elegant, with the freshness of the 700 to 900 meters above sea level where the vineyards grow. It reveals fine-grained tannins and medium ripeness at 13.5% alcohol. 6,500 bottles were filled in May 2023. The Luna Beberide family has been producing modern Bierzo wines since 1988. They work over 50 hectares of vineyards and bottle around 150,000 bottles per year. Paixar was one of the first icons from Bierzo. Luis Gutierrez – The Wine Advocate August 10, 2023

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