Reviews / Rezpiral Castilla

Review · · by The Editors

Rezpiral Castilla

Castilla at 49.4%, an uncommon agave through Berta Vásquez's method

Score: 4.0/5 agaves

Rezpiral Castilla bottle
  • Producer: Rezpiral
  • Maestro: Berta Vasquez
  • Region: San Baltazar Chichicapam, Oaxaca
  • Agave: Castilla
  • ABV: 49.4%
  • Price: $70 ($)

Verdict

Castilla is rare in commercial mezcal; the agave's character is lean and a touch austere, and bottlers tend to blend it away. Berta Vásquez put it on a solo bottling at 49.4%, and the result is one of the more educational bottles in the Rezpiral catalog. Not for first mezcals; for drinkers mapping what the genus can do.

Castilla is the agave almost no one bottles – and Berta Vásquez proves why they should

Tasting notes

Nose: Wet stone up front. Green herb, cooked agave underneath

Palate: Castilla presenting a profile that sits between karwinskii and americana, lean, mineral, with an unusual bitter-herbal edge. Berta Vásquez's discipline throughout; structured and distinct at 49.4%

Finish: Mineral, faintly bitter. Long

The bottom line

Buy it for the agave map, and for Berta Vásquez's hand

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