Bodegas: JB González y Cia.

Juan Bautista González y Villar was born in Jerez in 1846. His father, who came from the north of Spain, was a rich landowner and his mother was Mexican. Juan established his bodega in 1870 in the C/Arcos, 55. He bought soleras, some dating back to 1780, and also owned extensive vineyards in the Pago Macharnudo which he tended with great care.

Don Juan (foto:JLJimenez)

With such fine soleras he quickly earned a reputation for excellent quality which won him many international awards. The firm expanded considerably, having to move to larger premises in the old Orrantia bodegas in nearby Calle Matadero, 7 near the railway station in 1896.

González owned a much reputed brandy distillery within the bodegas where he produced a “Cognac-style spirit with a degree of quality and finesse which competes with the most accredited French spirits.” In 1907 the trading name changed to Juan Bautista González and remained as such till the firm ceased trading in 1933. Juan lived in a palatial house at Calle Corredera, 35 with his wife and daughter Juanita.

Their most memorable brands were: Amontillado Fino El Conocedor, Fino Viña del Pleito, Doble Palma, Ambrosía, Solera Palo Cortado Superior, Amontillado Néctar de Ángeles, Manzanilla Mariloli, Brandy Las Meninas, Brandy El Coloso.

8.11.17 Barbadillo Launches New Sparkling Wine

A new versión of Barbadillo’s Beta Brut has been launched: Beta Sur. Like its sister wine, it is made from Palomino and Chardonnay grapes grown in the firm’s own vineyards and made by the traditional method with a second fermentation in bottle. Unlike its sister wine, no dosage is added, making it a brut nature, and it spends 20 months rather than nine ageing on its lees in bottle. The Beta wines are not covered by the Cava regulations, but if they were, Beta Sur would be a reserva. The wine was launched at the Flamenco Dance Museum in Sevilla and served along with good music and food specially chosen to match Beta Sur.

Oloroso Los Buhos 18%, Wisdom & Warter

Appearance

Chestnut mahogany colour fading to amber with copper highlights.

Nose

Fresh and soft, with a light dried fruit note, traces of oak, not particularly old, somewhere between five and eight years perhaps, but has character with dried fig and walnut and an open friendly style and a faint wax note. 

Palate

Attractive smooth, open textured, fresh young Oloroso. The dried fruit notes follow through and balance beautifully with the oxidative character making it a very versatile everyday Oloroso which is very tasty and has really good length.

Comments

Wisdom and Warter were two Englishmen who in 1854 established a bodega in Jerez and earned a good reputation. The firm was bought out in the 1960s by González Byass and quietly disappeared, but GB still use the brand name for a standard but good quality range of Sherries mostly for export, but they can occasionally be found in Jerez, especially at GB's shop. Los Buhos was the W&W trademark featuring a pair of owls representing wisdom.

Price
6.65 euros, Licores Corredera

Manzanilla Solear en rama Autumn 2016 15%, Barbadillo (retaste)

Appearance

Brass tinged gold with bright golden highlights.

Nose

Full with lots of lovely bitter flor and notes of dry scrubland and briny seaside air with faint traces of pine and butter. It is a little more concentrated than when tasted a year ago and a little more complex. 

Palate

Quite intense with a decent acidity and that flor making it tangy and fresh. It is slightly more buttery than before, slightly more pasada, better integrated, and is as clean as a whistle with great length.

Comments

This delightful wine is still pristine, indeed much better and more evolved after a further year in bottle, with more concentration and intensity, and clearly demonstrates the value of  bottle age. I greatly look forward to tasting it again in another year or two if I can get hold of any more, but there were only 2,500 half bottles in the saca. It comes from 30 + year old vines and the wine has an average age of 8 years in solera plus one in bottle. This saca took place on 20^th September 2016 and came from 15 selected butts.

Price

13.90 euros per half bottle, De Albariza

Barbazul 2014 15.5%, Huerta de Albalá

Appearance

Dense, deep blacky red with a trace of orange in the ruby rim.

Nose

Full, ripe and slightly spicy. It speaks of heat with 15.5% alcohol, a trace of volatile acidity and a trace of jammy dried fruit. There is plenty of black fruit like plum and bramble as well as gentle aromas of the Allier oak and perhaps a trace of smoke.

Palate

Quite a powerful wine with lush super ripe black fruit verging on over-ripe. Luckily there is a decent level of acidity which provides a little freshness, and the tannins are ripe and not excessive. It is still fairly young though, and could do with a couple more years in bottle.

Comments

This Vino de la Tierra de Cádiz is made from a blend of Tintilla de Rota (10%), Syrah (70%), Cabernet Sauvignon (5%) and Merlot (15%) grown and hand picked at the 75 hectare Huerta de Albalá near Arcos de la Frontera owned by Vicente Taberner. This area has seen vine growing since Roman times. The wine is fermented in temperature controlled stainless steel tanks and aged for six months in 225 litre third year French Allier oak barrels. The wine then spends some time in bottle before sale. Barbazul translates as "bluebeard" and is certainly assertive enough for a pirate.

Price

6.60 euros, Licores Corredera

Lost Styles of Sherry

Sherry is a highly complex wine and is forever evolving. In the past, wines were described as accurately as possible according to their type and stage of development. But this can never be a precise art, and one bodega’s Manzanilla Pasada could have been another’s Manzanilla Amontillada, yet these decisions were made by highly skilled tasters and were pretty accurate. Nevertheless one can see that consumers would be confused, and the labelling regulations were simplified in 2012 as it is of course easier to simplify nomenclature than educate consumers. Some of these styles are still produced of course, but are sold using the simplified nomenclature. Anyway, here is a list of these "lost" styles with brief explanations.

Entrefino is a wine which lies between Fino and Amontillado. The term was mainly used in El Puerto de Santa María and the closest Jerez equivalent would be a Fino Amontillado or perhaps a Fino which was a bit fatter in style. Osborne’s Coquinero is the only commercial example from El Puerto still available.

Amontillado Fino Lies between Fino and Amontillado but closer to Amontillado than Fino Amontillado. It is a youngish Amontillado, perhaps 15 years old, which still has some Fino characteristics. Emilio Hidalgo’s El Tresillo is a rare and delicious example while Viña AB from González Byass used to be labelled Amontillado Fino, now just Amontillado. Cayetano del Pino once offered an Amontillado Fino Oloroso, presumably a fragrant Amontillado Fino. 

Fino Amontillado is the Jerez equivalent of Manzanilla Amontillada or El Puerto’s Entrefino, an older Fino which retains only very thin flor if any and thus shows signs of oxidation. Bobadilla's Victoria (below) changed to Fino in the late 1970s.

Amontillado Pasado is a Jerez style and is a mature wine between Amontillado and Amontillado Viejo. A middle-aged Amontillado perhaps. Not seen nowadays - at least under that name.

Manzanilla Amontillada  Is a stage between Manzanilla Pasada and Amontillado. By the Pasada stage the flor is getting weak, greyish and thin allowing a certain degree of oxidation, yet the wine is still recognisably Manzanilla, just older and more complex usually with over 10 years of average age. Amontillada is older and more complex still, yet not quite full Amontillado.

Manzanilla Olorosa Is a Manzanilla Pasada which over time has developed a particularly pronounced nose which slightly resembles an Oloroso, but still retains the hallmarks of Manzanilla on the palate. Both Barbadillo and Pedro Romero used to offer Manzanilla Fina Olorosa which must translate as “Fine Manzanilla Olorosa”, as Fina is young Manzanilla and as such can’t be Olorosa.

Palma is essentially the proper name for Fino, or at least particularly fine Fino, and its name derives from the chalk mark on the butt which vaguely resembles a palm frond. If a horizontal line is crossed over the mark it is called Palma Cortada and this signifies its suitability to become fine Amontillado. 

As the wine ages the palma can be crossed again. Tres Palmas is Fino at the limit of the flor while Cuatro Palmas will be an old Amontillado. La Riva, Blazquez and Cayetano del Pino used to sell “Fino Tres Palmas” but the only firm using this system commercially today is González Byass.

Oloroso Dulce/Abocado These are terms for Oloroso sweetened with Pedro Ximénez or occasionally Moscatel. They have been replaced by the term Cream.

Amoroso is an Oloroso with a particularly smooth character and more or less sweetness which may come from its high glycerine level or more likely the addition of a little PX.

Pajarete Once beloved of the whisky distillers, this very sweet wine was named after the place it was made in vineyards close to the old tower of Pajarete near Prado del Rey. Thanks to Phylloxera mainly, it has all but disappeared now, though Bodegas Rivero still make tiny quantities. A wine called Pajarete is made in Malaga but while sweet it is not the same.

Raya Is an inferior quality Oloroso, known as Raya macho if full bodied and a bit rough or Raya hembra if  light. They were sometimes made from grapes picked towards the end of the harvest. If it is not too inferior it is known as Raya Olorosa. Butts of Raya often used to be placed in the sun to age them more quickly and concentrate them and they were generally only used for blending. The name had died out until Luis Perez launched an unfortified example in 2017 called Raya La Barajuela. It is not DO Sherry, however.

Vino de Pasto is a modest Amontillado which has been slightly sweetened. Lustau used to offer an example till comparatively recently.

East India was generally a full, rich, sweet Oloroso which had been further aged in butts used as ballast in ships crossing the equator to the East Indies. It is thought that the wine spending months slopping around inside a butt which was not quite full had more effect than the temperatures, but while necessarily expensive, it was popular and many bodegas produced it. Lustau is the only one left and the wine no longer sails the seas but is aged in a warmer bodega.

Table Wine Bodegas: Finca Moncloa

Having successfully experimented with table wines using Syrah at the family owned viña Casa de Postas since 1972, González Byass took the plunge and bought the 45 hectare finca near Arcos de la Frontera in 2000. The climate is tempered by the Guadalcacín reservoir and sheltered from the Levante by the Sierra Valleja, and there is a long tradition of vine growing in the area, going back beyond the XIV century. Soils are chalky limestone and low in organic material, and excellent for making fine red wines. Careful studies were made of soil composition and microclimate and individual parcels established. Vine varieties were then selected for their suitability.

The intention was to recuperate the virtually lost tradition of red wine making and also recuperate the all but lost local grape variety, Tintilla de Rota which had given way to Palomino for Sherry and brandy production. The finca is now planted with 3 hectares of Tintilla, 2 hectares of Petit Verdot, 3 hectares of Merlot, 4 hectares Cabernet Franc, while the rest is Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah and Tempranillo.

Three wines are produced by oenologist José Manuel Pinedo: Finca Moncloa, Colección Barricas and a traditional sweet Tintilla de Rota which was launched in 2009, being the first time the bodega had produced this wine since the XIX century, though no longer in Rota. Grapes of the different varieties and parcels are vinified separately and a coupage is made after ageing, normally in 1^st or 2^nd year French oak. The bodega has a capacity for 20,000 cases but is only producing about half of that at the moment. Since 2014 Finca Moncloa has been a member of Grandes Pagos de España, an association of single vineyard wines with indisputable expression of their terroir.