Navarra, Spain
Navarra DO
Luis Guitierrez of the Wine Advocate writes:
Viña Zorzal Wines is one of the most dynamic projects in Navarra. They now work 73.5 hectares of vineyards in different locations, the newest of them in the village of Lerga, a cooler location, where they have found five hectares of Garnacha planted between 1900 and 1964. They work mostly with Garnacha but also with Graciano, Mazuela/Cariñena, Garnacha Blanca and Macabeo, and they are even experimenting with Garzuela, the cross between Garnacha and Mazuela. Every year, they introduce small improvements and fine-tuning in the viticulture and oenology, like cooling the grapes in a refrigerated truck to work with cool grapes and to give them time to process the grapes when they want, as sometimes you have to pick faster than you can process. Average production is 330,000 bottles. 2022 was very warm, but the wines are fresher than expected and the old dry-farmed vines behaved quite well.
92 points Wine Advocate:
The regular red 2022 Garnacha was produced with grapes from the whole region—Corella, Cintruénigo, Fitero and now also Lerga—from their earliest harvest ever under very warm weather, and it fermented with 20% full clusters and was bottled early and unoaked. It has contained ripeness, 13.41% alcohol, berry fruit, hints of licorice and a touch of honey and beeswax. It is primary and has a medium body and a juicy mouthfeel with good grip and tension, more serious than the nose points at, with some chalkiness and without any heaviness or heat. Purity. This is fresher than anticipated after the torrid 2022 summer. 146,600 bottles produced. It was bottled in February 2023.