Bodegas Ponce Clos Lojen Bobal Manchuela 2025

Organic / Biodynamic

This review is on the previous vintage.

93 points Wine Advocate
It fermented with full clusters and indigenous yeasts in open-top and well-seasoned 4,500-liter oak vats and matured in a combination of oak vats of different sizes—4,500-, 10,000- and 15,000-liter ones—for six months. Each plot was harvested at the right time, which seems to have increased precision in the cuvée, a fruit-driven, primary and juicy red with similar alcohol as in previous years, 12.5%, a pH of 3.6 and 5.7 grams of acidity. This is a lot more serious than a young and juicy red; it has fruit but with a complexity of flavors, a medium-bodied palate and very fine tannins. It's approachable and ideal with food, but it also has the potential to keep in bottle. It's a champion for quality/price, one to buy by the case. It has one of the lowest production volumes in recent times, 45,000 bottles. It was bottled between April and June 2025.

2025 was a very healthy year. Until June, it had been a textbook year, but three weeks of intense heat in August changed the vintage a little, despite the good water reserves the plants had. But yields were good again, not as much as in 2021, but average for them, a little back to normal.

The wines have achieved a level of refinement, elegance and purity that makes them overdeliver for the prices asked. Ponce's wines overall could be the biggest bargains in Spain! Bravo!