Mencía, with Bastardo (Trousseau), Garnacha Tintorera (Alicante Bouschet), Palomino, Doña Blanca and other varieties

Food pairings: Beef carpaccio, roast pork and cured meats.

Winemaking: For the warm 2022 vintage the wine was selected from ten vineyards, mostly in cooler spots. It fermented with 100% whole clusters, with spontaneous fermentation in large open-top oak vats, and matured for 14 months in used oak barrels and foudres. It is bottled unfined and unfiltered.

Vineyards and terroir: Ultreia Saint Jacques is a Mencía-dominant field blend from many old parcels in and around Valtuille de Abajo in Bierzo, mostly planted between the 1890s and the 1940s on clay, alluvial stones and sand.

Family and history: Raúl Pérez is one of Spain's most celebrated winemakers, an essential reference point in Bierzo and widely regarded as the father of the new Ribeira Sacra. A grape grower as well as a winemaker, from Valtuille de Abajo, where his family has tended vines for more than 300 years, he released his first wine of his own in 2003: Ultreia, named after the greeting once used by pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago. Imported to the US by Skurnik Wines.

In the pictures: Raúl Pérez; Raúl Pérez in the vineyard; and working an old Bierzo vineyard with horses.