Bodegas Luna Beberide, Bierzo (Castilla y León, Spain) 2021

 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.