Both Algueira’s flagship Mencías are released five years after harvest. While the Pizarra hails from the warmer terroir of the Carballo Cobo vineyard, Carravel is drawn from several old-vine terraces which hug a cool zone of perilously steep slate and schist soils in the Doade subregion. The fruit was hand-harvested, then foot-trodden and fermented with roughly 20% whole bunches in large wooden tronconique vats before spending between 12 and 24 months in neutral 600-litre barrels (and some very old barriques).