Manzanilla Mil Pesetas 15%, Bodegas Barbadillo

Appearance

Pale strawy gold with golden highlights.

Nose

Young and fresh with grassy camomile aromas and a hint of apple fruit along with a little flor bitterness and a slight maritime air. There is something attractive about young Manzanilla, full of youthful freshness but lacking the complexity of longer ageing,. Very decent.

Palate

Fresh and zippy with apple and some flor up front followed by  those grassy camomile notes, a faint trace of almond, nicely balanced acidity and a dry chalky texture and a gentle salinity. It is a young wine, maybe three years old, and belongs to a range of standard wines, mostly exported.

Comments

The story behind Mil (1,000) Pesetas is difficult to disentangle. It was a brand of Manzanilla Pasada from Vicente Romero Villareal, who took over Pedro Romero after his father´s death.  This version of Mil Pesetas, which uses the same type face on the label, comes from either Pedro Rodríguez e Hijos or Barbadillo depending on where you buy it, but either way it comes from Barbadillo who must have bought the brand, possibly during the death throes of Pedro Romero. Barbadillo´s Bodega Nueva sports a stone plaque on the faҫade saying Mil Pesetas and confusingly there is another warehouse in the bodega complex with the same name. There is a tale, likely untrue, that the owner of a bodega staked it in a game of cards but luckily he won, 1,000 pesetas, so he named the bodega accordingly. Anyway, Barbadillo sell a whole range of Cream, Manzanilla, Manzanilla Pasada, Fino, Amontillado, Oloroso, PX under this brand name or sous-marque, usually in 50cl bottles in export markets and they can occasionally be found in Spain.

Price
6 euros (75cl), Licores Corredera