Saturday 12 January 2019

Amontillado Botaina en rama 19%, Lustau

Appearance
Old mahogany to chestnut fading through amber to a faint trace of green at the rim, coppery glints.
Nose
Elegant and fairly intense and crisp with toasted almond and hazelnut, traces of oak and very faint but attractive notes of slightly overdone toast and salty, nutty bitterness. There is a slight glyceric hint as well with traces of dried fruits which rounds it off but doesn´t completely diguise a certain leanness showing the bare bones of the wine, which is no bad thing.
Palate
It starts off quite full then goes through a hint of sweetness before drying out and getting a little lighter as it opens out showing notes of oak and traces of tannin and that salty bitter nuttiness and less dried fruit than on the nose. It is still nutty though and lean and elegant with a long dry finish.
Comments
This is one of the Domecq brands bought by Lustau from Osborne in 2008 along with their soleras, some 4,000 butts in total. Botaina was always a highly regarded Amontillado in Jerez and had an approximate average age of over 12 years. Now it is perhaps closer to 15, but Lustau do not want to change the style of this iconic wine which is arguably better than Los Arcos and Escuadrilla. While most oxidatively aged wines are bottled in the autumn and traditionally - and even now - more or less en rama, Lustau have begun to make a feature of this and apply slip labels to draw attention to the different sacas, not that they really vary that much. Anyway this is the autumn edition 2018 and 4,272 bottles were drawn from the 54 butt solera.
Price
31.90 De Albariza

No comments:

Post a Comment