Tinto Roble 2014 14%, Manuel Aragón

Appearance

Dense black cherry red with ruby highlights, legs.

Nose

A good fruity start with fresh brambles and plums at the perfect point of ripeness, and some ripe red fruit notes from the Syrah. There are balsamic traces and gentle spice notes from the oak ageing and just a hint of charming rusticity.

Palate

Good and fruity up front then it gets a little more serious with firm but ripe tannins, a mineral note and a refreshing acidity, all well balanced. It is a lively wine with a mix of fresh brambles and very ripe plums and a faint trace of licorice near the long finish.

Comments

Established around 1820 this family run bodega in Chiclana has always produced Sherry style wines but has more recently diversified into table wines, though not in enormous quantities. This red, a Vino de la Tierra de Cádiz, is made from Tempranillo and Syrah. The grapes are hand picked and the wines made separately. Fermentation is in stainless steel tanks and the wine is pumped over  twice daily. The two wines are then blended and that blend is aged in French and American oak barrels for nine months. The firm also grows Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot which sometimes go into the blend. This is a very good value bottle of wine.

Price

5.00 euros ex bodega

Hotel Los Cisnes

Surprisingly, as recently as 1961 Jerez had only four hotels, and the grandest was the much lamented Los Cisnes (the swans) in the central Calle Larga. This Jerez institution stocked Sherry from all the bodegas and served afternoon tea to the many British bodegueros’ wives and families.

The facade, 1950s

It was originally founded in the early 1890s by Blas Gil López on a different site, further down the Calle Larga, which was then known as Calle Duque de Almodóvar, at the corner with the Plaza del Banco. It consisted then of a luxury hotel, café and restaurant. It was fitted out with all modern conveniences and even had a car at the railway station to collect guests, and luxury carriages to take them sightseeing. Service was impeccable but came at a price.

The gardens

The old Los Cisnes would be converted at around the turn of the century by a later owner into the sumptuous Gran Café Fornos, with a high class restaurant, which from the 1940s, offered musical performances from a local quartet. It survived until the 1950s.

The dining room

Meanwhile Blas Gil López had died and his widow established a new, bigger and more luxurious hotel with the same name further up the street. There were 5 storeys with 25 rooms on each and behind the entrance patio there were magnificent gardens. Opposite the large bar-café, the walls of the gallery were lined with works by contemporary artists, most of which were sold to American collectors. There was also the annual competition for the best Fiesta de la Vendimia poster.

Part of the bar

The heyday of the hotel was probably between the refurbishment of 1938 and the 1960s when anyone who was anyone stayed there, from bullfighters to flamenco and movie stars. Names like Lola Flores, Manolo Caracol, Conchita Piquer, Tyrone Power and many more could be found on the register. Lola and Caracol were infamous for their constant bickering and fighting, much to the bemusement of other guests. The hotel also had royal approval.

A business card

After the death of viuda de Blas Gil López the hotel was bought by a firm called Hotelera Andaluza but sadly, at the end of the 1970s it was sold to a property developer and converted into the ugly shopping centre we see today. Many of its external features can still be seen, however. Other fine hotels have opened since the loss of the old Los Cisnes and the era that it represented, but excellent though they are, none could be described as institutions.

A luggage label

Amontillado Viejo Seco 20%, Manuel Aragón

Appearance

Bronze tinted amber with copper highlights and a trace of green at the rim, legs.

Nose

Loads of toasted hazelnuts and almonds, traces of oak and a hints of humidity and cinnamon with a hint of sweetness. This smells old yet supremely elegant; very alive and complex, delightful.

Palate

Full, crisp and deeply flavoured, this is not a young wine, it has considerable age, well over 25 years at a guess. There is a certain volatile acidity giving it an attractive tang and then the nuts come through, with a glyceric sweetness and counterbalancing bitterness and a certain texture. There are notes of spice and traces of tannin but everything is beautifully integrated.

Comments

This delicious wine is a limited availablity very old Amontillado from the leading Chiclana bodega in the production zone, Manuel Aragón, better known - locally at least - as Bodegas Sanatorio, founded in 1795. Chiclana might only be considered a Sherry grape producer, but this bodega supplied the Equipo Navazos Palo Cortado No 62 which scored 98 Parker points, so they certainly have serious wines. This wine comes from the foundational solera and is released annually in very small quantities, bottled by hand direct from the butt.

Price

47.50 per 50cl bottle, Licores Corredera

31.3.17 González Byass and Fundador Close Domecq Deal

Control of the names Domecq and Pedro Domecq has returned to Jerez, where they began. González Byass and Fundador announced yesterday the completion of the 81 million euro deal with Pernod Ricard for the purchase of all Domecq brands and installations by Bodegas Las Copas, a 50/50 joint venture. The deal had been agreed back in November, but needed the green light from the Mexican competition authorities which has now been given.

The deal comprises the Mexican brandy distillery and the Casa Pedro Domecq wine bodega in Baja California as well as business interests in the United States, Brazil and Benelux. Just the three brandies produced in Mexico, Presidente, Don Pedro and Azteca de Oro, account for 50% (1.2 million cases) of the Mexican brandy market.

Back in 1994 Allied Lyons bought the Domecq business for a whopping 600 million euros, renaming itself Allied Domecq, but before long the vultures were circling in the form of Pernod Ricard and Fortune Brands who jointly bought the business and shared out its parts. PR got the brand name and the business in Mexico while Fortune (in the name of its subsidiary Beam) got the Sherry, brandy, bodegas and vineyards in Jerez. By the time Beam was taken over by Suntory it had divested itself of some of its principal assets: the La Ina range (to Lustau), the VOS and VORS Sherries and the Carlos brandies (to Osborne) as well as the Palacio Domecq and the Gallo Azul.

30.3.17 IV Tio Pepe Festival 2017

The Tio Pepe festival is a high point of the year in the cultural calendar of Jerez and this year’s event takes place between 10-14 August in various enclaves of the bodega complex. As usual there will be famous singers of a wide range of musical styles along with fine dining cooked by Michelin starred chefs matched with Sherry wine. The artists appearing have been announced and they are: Gregory Kunde, an American tenor who will sing arias from Verdi, Puccini and other composers. The wonderful Soprano Barbara Hendricks will sing jazz, blues and spirituals and the Dúo Dinámico, a famous Spanish group from the sixties will perform old hits in the indie style. Also performing are Miguel Poveda a famous flamenco “fusion” singer and Miguel Bosé, Spain’s best known popular singer. 10% of the profits from this unmissable event will be donated to the Spanish Association against Cancer. Ticket prices range between 35€ to 150€ and can be obtained online from www.tiopepefestival.com

Presentation of this year's event and poster (foto:diariodejerez)

Brandy Magno Solera Reserva 36%, Osborne

Appearance

Chestnut to amber with coppery highlights.

Nose

Spicy American oak and Oloroso dominate the nose with dried fruit and a hint of vanilla following through. There are trace notes of brown sugar, mineralsfrom the aguardiente and orange peel.

Palate

There is a trace of sweetness there which is the Osborne style, then it opens out into gentle Oloroso flavours and a kind of orangey caramelly fruitness. It is not old enough to have much tannin so any sweetness is more obvious, but it has a dry finish with decent length.

Comments

Launched in 1955, Magno was the next brandy up the scale from Veterano which was Spain's biggest selling brandy at the time and whose name used to adorn the famous huge bull-shaped billboards dotted around the country. Veterano used to be a straight solera brandy but unfortunately they changed it to a "bebida espirituosa" to keep the price low, so it is no longer technically brandy. In fact Osborne no longer market a solera brandy, just solera reserva and upwards. Anyway, this is a blend of pot still holandas and column still aguardientes distilled from Airen grapes at the firm's distillery in Tomelloso. It is aged in solera in butts which previously held Oloroso in El Puerto for over a year. The firm also produce a solera gran reserva brandy called Alma de Magno.

Price

10.25 euros widely available

28.3.17 Ruta del Vino y Brandy de Jerez to Incorporate Vineyards

Ruta del Vino y Brandy de Jerez is one of the most visited in Spain with over 400,000 visits last year, but it is too focused on city centre bodegas with visitor centres, and very few visitors have the opportunity to visit the vineyards. To put this right, a new vineyard route project has been launched, with the hope of funding from European ITI (Integrated Territorial Investment) grants.

César Saldaña, director of the Consejo Regulador, was unanimously re-elected yesterday as president of the Ruta del Vino y Brandy association at an extraordinary general meeting and accepted the challenge saying “we have spectacular countryside and vineyards only a stone’s throw away and the boost offered by the ITI funds is fundamental, but we must do things properly, step by step.”

The project promises employment and involvement in the project, but a few already identified problems must be solved first. The main one is that to receive the funds, the case needs to be justified and the total cost predicted. Of the 4.2 million euros available for wine tourism, there will be some half a million for the design of the route and its definition which will be the association’s responsibility. Later some 2 million will be available for infrastructures, mostly repair of country roads, and the rest for individual projects.

Members of the association at the Consejo's bodega San Gines (foto:diariodejerez)

But there is another problem. While European funding for public administrations is 100%, private ones only receive 90% meaning that the association will need to find 50,000 to bridge the gap while its members only pay an annual subscription of 200.  It was details like this which occupied a large part of yesterday’s meeting, and the directors will need to tackle at a further meeting the possibilities there are to face a challenge in which “we have accepted that the design needs to be different from the Ruta del Vino y Brandy yet it should in some way amalgamate all the knowledge and experience from the wine tourism point of view, and for that we will need to be creative to get the maximum benefit from the grant”. They are not ruling out some sort of agreement with public administration which would allow them the full grant.

“We are fully prepared to work and to devote as much time as the project needs”. Meanwhile there will be an external audit as a step towards the renewal of the Ruta del Vino de España certification. If this admirable project works out it will be a significant boost to the quality and variety of wine tourism in Jerez.