Ponce Clos Lojen Bobal 2024

Spanish grape Bobal fermented as 100% whole bunches in very large wooden open top fermenters. Wet stone, wild herb, a restrained fruit tartness that sits well alongisde savoury saltbus, garrigue, dried spice. The precise winemaking handles the rusticity well with great freshness and lightness allowing another glass. This has bistro and vin de soif written all over it, superb for the money. Mitch Milicich

Manchuela locale. A stint with Telmo Rodriguez, a stint in Beaujolais, hello Lapierre, amongst family properties at home in Spain, of smaller scale. Whole bunch winemaking here. This could be my value Spanish wine of the year – nuts!

Soft, sweeping red wine of earthy savouriness under stewed cherries, blood orange, toasted hazelnuts, black pepper and wet, sweated, Italianate herbs. An almost soif gamay feel to the wine, loose but with a gravelly haze through it all, lots of perfume, brightness under the savoury elements. Effortless drinking. 

93 pts, Mike Bennie, The Wine Front

The super-affordable 2024 Clos Lojen comes from a year that continues the warm and dry conditions of 2022 and 2023 but with lower yields and very healthy grapes. 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. 

Drink to 2030. 93 pts, Luis Guiterrez, The Wine Advocate