Having pioneered
vintage Finos, the bodega is launching a new one, “Tiento”, a Fino en rama 2007. It will be the first in a new
series of vintage Sherries which bears the names of different flamenco styles (palos)
on their labels according to the style of the wine. The origin of Tientos is in
risk taking, being adventurous, daring (the word translates as “care”) and that
is what winemaker Paola Medina has been doing in her amazing work with
biological ageing in vintage wines. Tientos are deep, majestic and slow and the
Fino is like that; deep and majestic, to be appreciated slowly. This is a rare bird as somehow flor has lasted on the wine for almost a decade in a couple of sealed sealed butts, and that is almost unheard of.
Interestingly it is not the first time the word
Tiento has appeared on a W&H label. In the past they bore the old
Andalusian saying “Para conserver el conocimiento, vete al vino con tiento,
pero si el vino es de Jerez, perderás el tiento alguna vez” (To preserve your
senses approach wine with care, but if it comes from Jerez, you can lose that
care for once). And the flamenco connection goes deeper. Since the firm’s first
vintage wine in 1920 there has always been a nod to flamenco in the shape of a
flamingo (flamenco in Spanish), and that tradition lives on. Just this month
Josep Roca chose a W&H Oloroso vintage 2002 to match a soleá at the Copa
Jerez “Tal palo, tal Jerez” event. The bodega is even sponsoring the first “Ciudad
de Jerez” prize for flamenco research.
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