Oloroso 15 Years Old 19%, Bodegas Maestro Sierra

Appearance

Deep antique mahogany with copper highlights fading to amber, legs.

Nose

Savoury with a trace of Marmite, lots of walnut, hints of old fashioned raisin-packed fruit cake, cinnamon, old oak barrels, fallen leaves, tobacco, traces perhaps of orange peel, gravy and a certain dankness from the well sited bodega. This is complex, and characterful.

Palate

Full bodied and intensely flavoured, the glycerine is balanced by a decent level of acidity, much of it volatile, making it well rounded on the palate, even with a trace of tannin. The glycerine, and perhaps the raisin and cinnamon notes, give an impression of sweetness, but it is dry with a very long, clean finish. Excellent Oloroso.

Comments

This is the youngest Oloroso commercialised by this outstanding bodega, and older than many out there; their others are 50 and 80 years old respectively. It may be the youngest but it lacks nothing in complexity; every time you take a sniff it reveals something more. Of course this solera feeds the older ones, so you can see why they are so good.

Price

9.50 per half bottle, Licores Corredera

Petit Forlong 2014 14.5%, Bodega Forlong

Appearance

Dense black cherry with only a trace of red in the tight pink rim, legs.

Nose

Beautifully ripe blackcurrant and bramble nose with noticeable and open texture, rich plump, bright and fruity with very little apparent oak but slight traces of smoke, red fruit and rubber from the Syrah nicely balanced with jam from the Merlot and tight black fruit from the Tintilla.

Palate

Quite full bodied and well structured with very good texture, very ripe tannins, lots of fruit and great length. It really shows the quality of wine that Cadiz can produce.

Comments

Incredibe value for money, but as with all wines from this excellent bodega, in rather short supply. It has no DO, probably because it would be too much hassle for a small bodega, but it simply doesn't matter, the wine has great integrity. It is made from 60% Syrah, 30% Merlot and 10% Tintilla grown organically on albariza soil near El Puerto de Santa Maria in what was once a Sherry vineyard. The must is fermented in tinajas and aged in oak barrels for six months before being bottled unfiltered.

Price

7.50 euros from Licores Corredera

Glycerine in Sherry

Glycerine, from the Greek “glukus” = sweet and often known as Glycerol, is a natural by-product of fermentation of sugar in the grape juice and is abundant in wine. This colourless, odourless, viscous liquid which has a slightly sweet taste is responsible for roundness and smoothness on the palate as it also tends to mask acidity. In conjunction with alcohol, it forms the legs or tears on the glass through the Marangoni effect whereby as the alcohol evaporates up the side of the glass it takes water and glycerine with it until the weight of the latter makes it fall back down into the glass. The more sugar in the must, the more glycerine the wine will contain, and it is more evident in warmer countries where grapes ripen more fully, like Spain for example.

A wine’s glycerine content can vary according to the yeast strain, however. Wine yeasts are from the Saccahromyces or (sugar-eating) group and some are hungrier sugar eaters than others. While Saccaromyces Cerevisiae is responsible for most wine fermentations, it is not the only yeast involved and different places have different native yeast populations which help to create so many different styles of wine. In the Marco de Jerez the flor yeasts are rapacious.

Levels of glycerine in Sherry vary enormously due to the actions (or not) of flor yeasts. A newly fermented wine such as a mosto destined for Fino will contain somewhere around 7.3 g/l, but after say five years under flor this level will have diminished to close to zero, while volatile acidity and alcohol, which flor is also fond of, will have dropped to a quarter and by half a degree respectively from their original levels. The resulting Fino is therefore bone dry, low in acidity and viscosity.

When that Fino is fortified again to become an Amontillado, things go into reverse once flor is no longer present. Through the concentration caused by transpiration of water from the butts, everything slowly becomes less dilute, so the tiny glycerine content becomes more apparent again, though rarely beyond 2 g/l, while the alcohol level rises and oxidation increases volatile acidity again. The finished wine remains very dry and with more bite yet that hint of glycerine rounds it off.

Oloroso starts off with much the same glycerine content but, never having been subjected to flor, that content rises by perhaps a third during ageing to reach some 9 g/l. Meanwhile the alcohol level rises and continuous oxidation causes volatile acidity levels to rise also. This gives the fuller bodied, generous, darker, and apparently sweeter style we know and love.

To get the feel of the effect of glycerine, you could try a sip of Fino or Manzanilla followed by a sip of a normal table wine, and see how sweet the latter seems despite containing nearly double the level of acidity.

Brandy Uno en Mil Solera Gran Reserva 40%, Sánchez Romate

Appearance

Bright light mahogany with gold flecked amber highlights, legs.

Nose

Forthcoming and refined with lots of toasted hazelnuts and almond and only faint notes of toasty American oak balanced by a slight trace of sweetness giving the impression of a 40% Amontillado. There is a  slight dried apricot or raisin note and traces of straw and cabinet maker's workshop, all beautifully integrated.

Palate

Fresh and clean with gentle clove and orange notes and a hint of exotic wood. The nuttiness is still there and the overall impression is one of elegant restraint, rather than the heavier Oloroso or PX aged style, yet it is intensely nuanced and beautifully balanced with charm and length. Very Good.

Comments

By the norms of Brandy de Jerez this one is unusual - in the best possible way. At Romate's Bodega de Barreras they have 1,000 butts of ageing holandas (the finest spirit, slowly distilled in alquitaras or pot stills). Rather than go through a solera, this brandy is the contents of a single numbered butt selected by the firm's spirits expert, Ricardo Real, for its unique and distinguished character. It follows that the brandy from each selected butt will be slightly different, as is the case with single cask whiskies, so there is a whole new brandy to look forward to every now and then. Each bottle carries the number of that butt which may have been seasoned with either Fino or Amontillado. This was Amontillado butt 186 and it quite superb, highly complex world class brandy.

Price

29.95 from Licoreria La Latina, Fuengirola

La Casa de Contratación

In May this year celebrations will take place to mark the tercentenary of the arrival of the Casa de Contratación de Indias in Cádiz. It had first been established near the quayside in Sevilla in 1503 by royal decree of the Catholic Monarchs, Fernando and Isabel, and its purpose was to control  a monopoly on the vast trade with recently discovered Spanish America. It also collected 20% tax for the crown of Castilla on all imports. The archives of the Indies are still there, occupying no fewer than 8 kilometres of shelving. Sevilla soon became the nerve centre of the Spanish empire and ships plying the Indies route came and went from here on the river Guadalquivir, with Sanlúcar benefiting considerably. Here many traders established themselves as Cargadores de Indias, supplying wine, provisions and cargo to the ships, and some of their houses still survive, usually with a bodega and store on the ground floor and living quarters above.

The original in Sevilla, now lost (foto:galeon.com)

As cargoes continued to increase, 600 ton weight limits had to be imposed on ships sailing up the Guadalquivir, and many found it more convenient to dock at Cádiz, which by 1680 had overtaken Sevilla in importance. King Felipe V therefore decided to move the Casa de Contratación to Cádiz in 1717, and after using various rented buildings, a new neoclassical purpose built complex was completed in 1783, containing the customs, mercantile consulate and the Casa de Contratación itself. It now houses provincial government offices. Among the main exports were textiles, iron goods, wine - mainly Sherry - oil and wheat, while imports included cochineal, indigo, copper, tin, tobacco, sugar, cacao and precious metals.

One facade of the Casa de Contratacion in Cadiz (foto:dipucadiz.com)

The city became very prosperous and looked like it. 1,000 heavily laden ships were coming and going every year and the population had nearly doubled, with many foreigners living there, but this prosperity began to decline with the arrival of free trade in 1790 when Cádiz lost its monopoly and ships could trade where they liked. The XIX century was very unkind to Spain as it suffered invasion from Napoleon and gradually lost nearly all of the colonies. The tercentenary will be celebrated with a mixture of pride and sadness.

Amontillado 3/10 18.5%, Alexander Jules

Appearance

Light amber with brassy gold highlights, legs.

Nose

Very attractive young Amontillado nose, yet still full of zippy Manzanilla-ness. Lurking just behind the softly buttery and gently nutty facade with its slight trace of cinnamon, is a raw, saline windswept Manzanilla. The wine is at a lovely stage, just at the cusp (or just past it?) of being one style or another. It used to be called "Amontillado Fino" but that term can no longer be used.

Palate

Delightful tension between the salty Manzanilla and the sweeter Amontillado, and they don't cancel each other out, a little like the idea of salted caramel. There is plenty glyceric nuttiness more or less balanced by a hint of flor driven bitterness, and it has real character, length, and is exciting to drink.

Comments

This wonderful wine, of a type rarely seen commercially these days, comes from bodegas Juan Piñero in Sanlúcar. It started life as Manzanilla Maruja which, sixteen clases (criaderas) and the solera later, emerges as Amontillado. This wine was drawn at an interim stage from three butts from two five-butt clases, hence its name. 80% of the saca is from the older clase. The solera is refreshed with mosto from the local Pago Hornillo, and the wine has an average age of 18 years despite its freshness. It was bottled with the absolute minimum of stabilisation in two sacas: 50cl (684 bottles) in June 2016 and 37.5cl (1006 bottles) in October 2016, just under 720 litres in all.  The bottle is sealed with a Diam cork.

Price

25 euros per 50cl, Er Guerrita

This label shows a different strength and bottling date from mine...

12.4.17 More Single Cask Lustau Sherries

The legendary wine merchants and online retailers Vila Viniteca have teamed up with Lustau again to launch more of the superb single cask Sherries. Vila Viniteca was established in Barcelona in 1932 and is now run by third generation Quim Vila. Over the years it has expanded dramatically and become one of Europe’s leading international wine merchants and distributors, being the first in Spain with a website and the first to offer wines en primeur, among many other initiatives. The project with Lustau goes back to 2002, and this time it was organised with the bodega’s new oenologist Sergio Martínez. Various butts were tasted and wine from the best ones was selected and bottled in March. They might appear expensive but the quality is exceptional and the wines virtually unique, so they are definitely worth the money. Quantities are very limited and the bottles are 50cl. The wines are:

Fino del Puerto 480 bottles @ 24.50€

Fino de Jerez 480 bottles @ 24.50€

Oloroso del Tonel 480 bottles @ 29.90€

Moscatel Las Cruces  504 bottles @ 59.25€

Pedro Ximénez 480 bottles @ 59.25€

Tintilla de Rota 204 bottles @ 98.70€