23.5.19 Bodegas 501 to be Auctioned Off

The Sanish central tax authority, the Agencia Tributaria (or Hacienda as it is known), is to auction off the old firm of Bodegas 501 in its entirety due to its inability to pay taxes owed. According to some, the origin of this sorry tale goes back a couple of decades to an alleged fraud in the payment of alcohol taxes, and the proprietors, José Carlos Torres Gázquez and family and one or two others, reached an agreement with Hacienda offering their site and premises, which have great potential for conversion into housing, as a guarantee. However the bureaucracy involved in changing the oficial use of the site took forever and then the real estate crisis arrived, which made the agreement unworkable.

In fact, Bodegas 501, originally known as Bodegas Carlos & Javier de Terry dating from 1783 and re-named after their famous and very successful Brandy 501, ceased their bodega activities twelve years ago and converted themselves into distributors, albeit of their own brands. In 2010 they signed a deal for Sánchez Romate to produce and bottle 501 for the export market, having agreed some six months previously a similar deal with Osborne to produce three versions of 501 – Solera, Grana and Oro - for the domestic market. The soleras were transferred to Romate and Osborne respectively, both of whom have more modern and efficient installations which keep costs down.

 The auction will take place on 28th May and in two lots. The first is the buildings which consist of two warehouses and the land they stand on in Calle Valdés in El Puerto de Santa María, for which Hacienda have fixed a starting bid price of 3.2 million euros. The second lot is the industrial proprty rights to 24 brands of wines and brandies, most in disuse, and Hacienda have fixed a starting bid price for these of 11.3 million euros.This sad news comes in the wake of the virtual demise of Garvey.

Pedro Ximénez 2017 Fermentación Lenta 14%, Ximénez Spínola

Appearance
Bright amber tinged gold with golden highlights.

Nose

Forthcoming, fresh, aromatic and interesting with attractive aromas of overripe grapes giving a slight  impression of sweetness and even a hint of botrytis, neither of which is actually present. There are notes of quince jelly, raisin, dried apricot, straw and faint oxidation which combine to produce considerable complexity in a wine with a unique identity.

Palate

While dry really, there is a faint hint of sweetness enhanced by moderate acidity yet balance is good and it has a long dry finish. There is no shortage of flavour which is mostly dried fruits, not totally unlike a dry German auslese, but with that distinct PX quince flavour and a higher strength. There is a very gentle grape skin texture and a hint of albariza chalk as well.

Comments

This is another unique, serious and delicious wine from this wonderfully idiosyncratic bodega which makes its wines only from  Pedro Ximénez. In this case the grapes are left on the vine to over-ripen for about three weeks longer than for a conventional harvest and are then they are taken to the bodega and lightly pressed. The yield, naturally, is very low, about 600 litres per ton. Once pressed, the must, along with the skins is poured into 300 litre French oak barrels, but they are not filled completely so as to allow for the daily addition of 30 litres more must. This process allows for a slow and complete fermentation which lasts all of fifteen days, but is both complicated and difficult as PX has a tendency to leave residual sugars. The wine is subjected to regular but gentle batonnage throughout its nine months of ageing on lees (interestingly the main label says 9 months yet the back label says six...) and the result is a dry but rich wine of great individuality. The 2017 vintage produced 6248 bottles which are sealed with a 2 inch Diam cork.

Price

30.00,De Albariza

Oloroso 18% 3a saca, Bodega Lorente y Barba

Appearance
Bright deep mahogany fading to amber with ruby highlights and a trace of green at the rim.

Nose

Full, aromatic and classic. Lovely rich, open textured Oloroso which defines the terms "Oloroso" and "vino generoso" with attractive notes of oak, walnut, toasted almond, leather, toasted bread, hints of cinnamon, marmalade and even faint traces of coffee.

Palate

Quite full bodied, dry but nicely rounded off by a little glycerine, well structured and textured but with very little tannin which gives a serious wine lots of charm. There are traces of caramel, tobacco and that marmalade and cinnamon and the wine is very long, tasty and super smooth.

Comments

This is the welcome third saca of this lovely Oloroso and, as is the practice of the bodega of bottling wine from individual butts of the solera, this is from butt 26. The bodega building which is  quite possibly the oldest in Jerez, is perfectly located by a well dating back to at least Moorish times which helps provide cool humidity for the flor on the Fino. The soleras of Fino and Oloroso have been in the family for three generations.

Price

27.95 euros

 26

Palo Cortado en rama 2002 saca enero 2019 20%, Williams & Humbert

Appearance

Bright amber with brassy golden highlights.

Nose

Very elegant and lighter than one might expect for its age but with all sorts of subtle and complex  nuances. There are still slightly saline traces of Fino along with hints of toasted bread, some nutty very slightly rancio oxidative notes, faint  traces of olive, blonde tobacco, recently sawn wood, a very gentle caramel sweetness. It has neither the overt almond of Amontillado nor the walnut of Oloroso and the oxidation is very delicate, unusual and delightful, with a distant trace of spice.

Palate

A little bigger on the palate with a faint biological bitterness and salinity in the background and a touch more volatile acidity than expected, but that soon rounds itself off, balanced by a tiny amount of residual sugar and the wine finishes dry. It has an attractive texture with a hint of that albariza dryness with hardly any tannin so it is very smooth and extremely graceful with good length.

Comments

100% Palomino grapes from the firm´s own vineyards in the classic Jerez pagos of Carrascal and Añina were lightly pressed and fermented in tanks before the wine was filled into bodega butts where it was left to age statically rather than in solera. This wine was fortified to 18% at the sobretablas stage when it had only had just a little flor, and it spent the rest of its life ageing oxidatively. Since every butt is different, they are carefully monitored and classified, and in this case a selection was made from the best of the 24 butts ageing oxidatively which really showed albariza character and the finesse of Palo Cortado.

Price

33.85 per 50cl, Licores Corredera

Amorro Espumoso 2017 11.5%, Bodega Vinifícate (Mahara Viticultores)

Appearance

Pale strawy gold with golden highlights and a good mousse with a little bead.

Nose

Fresh with faint lingering fermentation notes, but the appley Palomino shines through. There are also very slightly floral notes of straw and green herbs and a trace of lemon candy alongside the inevitable hint of salinity, and you can detect the skin maceration. Most attractive.

Palate

Dry, clean and well rounded with fruity notes of apple and quince and a trace of fresh apricot, while the  acidity is nicely judged and that hint of salinity, which gives away its Cádiz origins, really makes it dangerously moreish and the perfect accompaniment to all sorts of tapas, especially seafood.

Comments

This very small but very enterprising  bodega established in 2011 is located in San Fernando, Cádiz, and run by two brothers, José and Miguel Gómez, who decided to make artisan wines. Miguel was once involved with Alba Viticultores. They make small, but growing quantities of wine from local grape varieties fermenting them in tanks and ageing them in tinajas (clay jars) or wide rimmed amphorae of various sizes, something which dates back to Phoenician times, and now own 2 ha in Balbaina which they farm bio-dynamically. No additives are used and everything is done by hand. This is their first sparkling wine and it is made from Palomino by the “método ancestral” by which the wine is bottled half way through fermentation which began in fibreglass tanks with 7 days of skin contact. The grapes, which were harvested by hand,  came from two vineyards in Chiclana: El Marquesado on sandy soil, and another on albariza. 900 bottles produced with no added sulphites and 16 months on lees. A sparkling rosado has also been launched among other goodies. Can´t wait!

Price

10.80 euros, Licores Corredera

Manzanilla Pasada Solear en rama Primavera 2019 15%, Barbadillo

Appearance

Mid strawy gold with golden highlights.

Nose

Fresh, with beach-like aromas and lots of doughy, bready, almost toastyy yeastiness with hints of olive brine. It is very slightly closed and less effusive than the summer and winter bottlings but certainly not short of aromas. There are also looming pasada notes of cabezuela and faint oxidation.

Palate

Clean, tangy and complex with that lovely slightly buttery roundness which balances with the dry, faintly bitter flor and gentle salinity. All the characteristics are very subtle as the yeasts curbed their reproductive activity over the winter months, but it gives a nice tight style of wine.

Comments

This lovely Manzanilla started life being hand picked in the vineyards of Gibalbín and Santa Lucía and later becoming Solear once it aged in solera for 6 years. It was then transferred for a further 2 years of ageing to another 550 butt  solera in two clases in the El Potro bodega. Here it takes on the pasada characteristics which give it greater depth and complexity. 15 butts are then selected and 100 litres were drawn from each on the 22nd March 2019 for bottling en rama. The quarterly saca is made at the beginning of each new season and represents the prevailing conditions of the last one. The remaining wine in the solera will go on to supply the Amontillado solera.

Price

14 euros per half bottle, Licores Corredera

Ube de Ubérrima Maina 2016 14.5%, Bodegas Cota 45

Appearance
Bright golden straw with golden highlights.

Nose

Full and forthcoming with a little weight from good ripeness of the appley Palomino grapes and faint tropical notes. There is also a saline maritime air coming presumably from the vineyard location near Sanlúcar and the ageing in an ex Manzanilla butt. All the above makes for a very interesting and appetising character.

Palate

It is quite soft and nicely rounded and beautifully balanced with moderate but sufficient acidity and it has considerable depth with lots of ripe apple fruit. There is a faint trace of residual sugar which is dried out by that gentle salinity, and of course a hint of albariza chalkiness making it very moreish.

Comments

This excellent wine is made from grapes grown in  the extreme northern part of the La Charanga vineyard in the pago Ma(h)ina near Sanlúcar which is partially surrounded by marshland and has very fine albariza in the form of barajuelas which have a very high marine fossil content. Its producer, Ramiro Ibáñez, is dedicated to making wines as they were in the past, using old vines and methods but with modern skills to display the personality of the vineyard itself and that of the vintage without letting flor or winemaking techniques obscure it. So this is a single vineyard wine, 100% Palomino selected at the vineyard and fermented and aged in an ex Manzanilla butt with flor kept to an absolute minimum. Those wines of the past must have been great.

Price

37.95, De Albariza