Mencía is the red grape that defines DO Bierzo. It is native to the western part of the Iberian peninsula and is called Jaen in Portugal's Dão, with Spain growing more than 9,100 hectares of it and Portugal roughly 2,500. For a long time it was assumed to be related to Cabernet Franc, but DNA profiling has shown the two are distinct varieties, and microsatellite analysis instead points to a Portuguese origin as a cross of Alfrocheiro and Patorra. The historic Bierzo style was light, pale and fragrant, made for early drinking from high-yielding plantings; the change since the 1990s has come from old hillside vines on slate, lower yields and better vineyard work, which produce far more concentrated and complex wines. DO Bierzo requires a minimum of 70 percent Mencía in its young reds, and the village and paraje tiers of the regional pyramid are built almost entirely on the variety. In the region it is grown as goblet-trained bush vines, often on parcels of a few thousand square metres, with Valtuille de Abajo working clay slopes and Corullón working slate and quartzite at higher altitude.
Godello is the main white grape of DO Bierzo and the variety most Bierzo producers reach for when they want a white with structure. It carries a long list of synonyms across the north-west, among them Agodello, Berdello, Godelho and Ojo de Gallo, and it is held to be the same variety as Gouveio in northern Portugal. Spanish plantings grew from 880 hectares in 2004 to 1,153 in 2008 as the variety recovered from a long decline, with Valdeorras across the Galician border the reference point for the style and Bierzo the other significant Spanish home. In Bierzo it is planted on the same acidic, carbonate-free soils as Mencía and is handled in several ways: fermented and aged in tank for the fresher bottlings, kept on lees for texture, or barrel-fermented in the more ambitious cuvées. Dominio de Tares makes both La Sonrisa de Tares and a Cepas Viejas Godello, Casar de Burbia, Godelia, Bodega del Abad and Bodegas Adriá all bottle it, and Gancedo's Herencia del Capricho is one of the region's better-known examples.
Doña Blanca, the White Lady, is the second authorised white of DO Bierzo after Godello and one of only three Spanish denominations where it is permitted, alongside Valdeorras and Monterrei in Galicia. In Portugal it is Dona Branca and it grows through the Douro and northwards; in Valdeorras it also answers to Valenciana, and the wider synonym list runs to Moza Fresca, Graciosa and Malvasia Branca among others. The grapes have thick skins that cope with a wet maritime climate, which is exactly the trait that suited the damp north-west, but that same thickness is a handling problem in the cellar: even brief skin contact pulls astringency and a slight bitterness from the high polyphenol load. In Bierzo it appears mostly as a blending partner rather than a solo bottling, with Bodegas Bernardo Álvarez, Godelia and Mengoba among the houses that list it in their varietal mix.
Garnacha Tintorera is the Spanish name for Alicante Bouschet, bred in France in 1866 by Henri Bouschet from a cross of Petit Bouschet and Grenache. It is one of the very few teinturier grapes within Vitis vinifera, meaning the flesh is red as well as the skin, and it gives deep colour and high alcohol. Spain had 22,572 hectares of it in 2015, making it the fifth most planted red variety in the country. In DO Bierzo it is an authorised red variety and turns up in the old mixed parcels rather than as a monoculture, which is how most Bierzo producers encounter it: as scattered vines interplanted among Mencía in vineyards planted long before anyone was keeping varietal records. Losada Vinos de Finca bottles it as La Senda del Diablo, aged in oak and amphorae, and Mengoba lists it among the varieties worked at Espanillo and Arganza.
Merenzao is the north-west Iberian name for Trousseau, an old red variety from eastern France that DNA work has shown to be closely related to Savagnin and a sibling of Chenin Blanc and Sauvignon Blanc. In Portugal it is Bastardo, used in port and in Dão reds, and in Spain it appears under Merenzao, Bastardo Negro and Maturana Tinta, mostly in the Galician regions of Ribeira Sacra and Valdeorras. It is an authorised red variety of DO Bierzo, where it survives in the old mixed plantings rather than as a modern block. The variety needs hot, dry conditions to ripen properly, which is why it stayed marginal in cool sites, and it gives deep cherry-red wines with high alcohol and sharp acidity, red berry fruit and a mossy, mineral undertow. Vinos LOF is one of the Valtuille de Abajo growers who list it alongside Mencía, Godello and Estaladiña.
Estaladiña is a red variety authorised in DO Bierzo alongside Mencía, Garnacha Tintorera and Merenzao, and it is the one on the list with the strongest local claim. It survives in the region's old mixed parcels, where growers who inherited pre-modern vineyards have found it interplanted with Mencía rather than blocked out on its own, and it has been pulled back into commercial use only by producers willing to bottle very small volumes. Grégory Pérez at Mengoba lists it among the varieties he works from Espanillo and Carracedelo and releases it under its own name, and Vinos LOF in Valtuille de Abajo names it in its varietal mix beside Mencía, Godello and Merenzao. Volumes across the denomination remain tiny, so it functions as a marker of how much genetic material the Bierzo old-vine stock still holds rather than as a category a visitor will meet on most lists.
