Thursday 11 October 2018

Estero Blanco 2016 12%, Williams & Humbert

Appearance
Pale strawy gold with golden highlights.
Nose
Fresh and quite fruity with notes of apple, quince jelly, apricot and a faint herbal touch along with hints of straw or esparto - a trace of bottle age creeping in maybe, but no bad thing. It has an attractive gentle apply rawness which one might expect from both Palomino and no malo-lactic.
Palate
Slightly more serious than you might expect for what the wine professes to be, and for its price. Naturally there are flavours of apple, but there are more mature notes of stewed apple and some membrillo (quince). There  is a gentle grapeskin texture and nicely judged acidity; it is clean and balanced with a fairly decent length.
Comments
This is a light straightforward white designed for summer refreshment. But it is a little confusing as  the website says it is made from Palomino grown in their own vineyards in the pago Balbaina, while the label says it is a coupage (blend) of traditional grape varieties of the area. Anyway, "Estero" means "estuary" and one imagines they want to project the idea of enjoying it with seafood on Sanlúcar's romantic Bajo de Guia while watching one of the area's legendary sunsets. The idea is good: a young, fresh, zippy wine perfect with vegetables and seafood. According to the website it is made from the first pressing and moderately cold-fermented with selected yeasts at between 17 and 19°C. The minute the alcoholic fermentation is over, after some 10 days, it is stabilised and bottled to retain a little of the CO2 and all the primary freshness. No malo-lactic here. This 2016 however, has been in bottle for 2 years now and has lost any CO2 and some of the primary aromas, but has developed a new and quite interesting character, and while it is probably not worth keeping more than another year, it is pretty sound stuff for the money. Diam cork.
Price
3.00 euros ex bodega


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