In Search of Lost Sherry

This is my humble translation of a very interesting article written by Paz Ivison in El Mundo Vino 28.8.14

Young winemakers in the Jerez area are on a hunting-gathering mission for Sherry. It might be considered a contradiction – young people looking into the past, but no, quite the contrary. The best vanguard is tradition, as was once famously said by the famous French writer, essayist, poet and philosopher, Paul Valery. His brilliant mind had nothing to do with oenology or wine, but his reflections are perfect on this occasion as on many others. Among these young winemakers whom I met in my home town, Jerez, I must highlight the sublime if difficult work which two of them, Ramiro Ibañez and Willy Perez, are doing. Both have worked in California, Australia… and gained considerable experience, ideas and knowledge travelling in the New World, and are applying their knowledge and fascination to one of the most historic and traditional of all the wine making regions in Spain, Jerez.

Happily, Sherry is beginning to awaken interest among Spanish people, long forgotten by the producers – let it be said in passing – and is beginning to experience what we could call a slightly better period, and this is down to its own singular unique and complex essence and the work of certain journalists, sommeliers and great aficionados, rather than the producing and exporting bodegas who looked at the domestic market as an afterthought. Export was all.

Exporting wine is the solution nowadays for nearly every bodega in the country, after all the years of crisis and huge competition. But we need to look back 50 years, when the panorama was quite different. There were few quality bodegas in Spain and Sherry, with not the slightest competition in terms of style was never really promoted at home, making its understanding and consumption among Spaniards of any age more difficult, let alone for the young folk.

These young winemakers are searching for the lost times and the lost Sherry. It is never too late. Films such as The Mystery of Palo Cortado, currently being shot in Jerez, great tastings, Gonzalez Byass Sherrymasters,  the Consejo’s Sherry Educators course, congresses, fairs and the naming of Jerez as European City of Wine have without doubt helped to recuperate some lost time. The vineyard area has been reduced to a third of what it once was – in line with falling sales – but there is no overproduction now, and quality is much better.

Ramiro Ibanez (foto ggelalmirez.com)

The oenologist Ramiro Ibañez Espinar, from Sanlucar, came back to the Sherry area after a few years of experience abroad, and took up a solo career as a freelance oenologist and viticulturist as well as producing his own experimental wines. It is to him we owe the seriously interesting wine which he made for Bodegas Ximenez Spinola, Original Exceptional Harvest. A vintage Pedro Ximenez, ripened on the vine, late harvested, macerated and fermented on the skins and aged for four months in American oak on its lees which were carefully stirred.

Its release onto the market was quite a surprise, though very little was available in Spain itself. I was able to try it thanks to the inexhaustible generosity of my good friend Armando Guerra of the Sacristia of the Taberna El Guerrita in Sanlucar, an example of a cult taberna and totally committed to the region and its wines. I strongly recommend you to visit it. (*See Paula’s tasting notes on this wine).

Despite the quality, modernity and novelty of this wine, the philosophy of the young proprietor of this bodega was still traditional: export. He thought nobody in Spain would understand it.  So we don’t have points of reference, and without them we’re not going to shake up the world, as Archimedes would have said if he had been here. Ramiro Ibañez no longer makes this wine, and the following vintage which I tried, again thanks to Armando Guerra, was a pale imitation of the glorious 2011.

In search of lost grape varieties

Ramiro Ibañez and Willy Perez are a certain type of winemakers. They share interests, research and knowledge. They are committed to the recuperation of the Jerez pagos (groups of individual vineyards), the first vineyards to be considered as such in Spain, but which for many years have done little more than serve as material for institutional texts.

Willy Perez (foto cosasdecomer)

Willy, thanks to his family’s recent purchase, has had access to one of the older vineyards, El Corregidor in the pago Carrascal and opposite the pago Macharnudo. Here there are 30 hectares of old Palomino (clone 84) planted before the arrival of the California clone. Willy was allowed 6 hectares in which to experiment and see if he could realise his dream, a vintage Fino, 2013 in this case, without fortification. He threw away many grapes and harvested two or three weeks later than usual. The grapes achieved 16.3% alc/vol without fortification. Some of the must was fermented in stainless steel tanks and part in butts of American oak, but for 2014 he has fermented it all in butts.

At the beginning of last November the wine was run into empty 500 litre butts which had been seasoned with Fino but had no remaining yeast sediment, and these are being kept aside in his father, Luis Perez’ underground bodega, which is mostly dedicated to red wines. So there it is, the vintage Fino, under a veil of flor, like a virgin bride approaching the altar under the expectant gaze of the loving young oenologist. Willy personally looks after this wine’s 20 butts which he has filled fuller than normal to avoid excess flor as it devours alcohol and could dangerously reduce the alcohol level over the 2 year minimum ageing period.

Late last November I had the opportunity to try the wine from the butts, and it was very long with an extraordinary minerality and well balanced acidity, dry with a marked bitter almond note. Then, the wine has 16.3%, but I have just tasted it again at 15.6% still with flor and with a few months still to age. All this without a drop of added alcohol, a really emotional experience, hanging by a natural thread, but we still need to wait.

2 year old vintage Palo Cortado

But Willy’s friend Ramiro doesn’t need to wait much longer. Soon he will bottle his Encruzijado 2012, a 2 year-old Palo Cortado – yes you read that right. This is a completely new wine, made from 50% grapes from old vine varieties which he moved heaven and earth to find, but managed to obtain from growers here and there in the Sherry area. These old varieties are: Mantuo Pilas, Mantuo Castellano, Beba, Perruno and Cañocazo, all with their rustic sounding names, and 50% selected Palomino with the bunches taken from the centre of the vine to retain a little more malic acidity.

Canocazo grapes on albariza soil (foto elmundovino)

His objective is to be able to offer the curious or interested consumer the possibility of trying and enjoying a wine aged biologically (under flor) but which has the right characteristics to be fortified and age oxidatively. But just before fortification to 18%, just at that moment when the capataz set aside one of “those” butts and said “This Fino is “Gordo” (fat), it is no use for Fino, it needs to be fortified”, and picked up the chalk and marked the butt with a line and a cut (palo cortado). The secret here is those old grape varieties which had a lot of malic acid and the artisanal fermentation in butts with natural local yeasts.

Ramiro trod his grapes with his own feet, he made only one butt of his 2012 which is now 20 months old, 10 under flor in the months of spring and autumn and 10 without flor in summer and winter. Encruzijado 2012 will come to market as Vino Generoso de Licor and without a DO. Nevertheless it is quite an experience - and one with a big future because the wine shows a surprising maturity on the palate with structure and lactic, buttery notes. (*See also Paula’s notes on Equipo Navazos No.52)

So as to our young hunter-gatherers, are they going backwards or forwards? We’ll keep you informed.

Fortified or Unfortified: The Past is the Future

Sherry is a fortified wine. Alcohol, which must be derived from grapes, and is in the region of 95% pure, is added at some stage or other, and in whatever suitable proportion, but the Reglamento (the rule book) does not actually specify this, only the minimum strengths required according to the style of the wine.

Wines from the region were not fortified in the distant past. It was not until the arrival of the Moors in AD 711 that distilling knowledge became available. Even then, it was used in attempts at medicine, perfume and alchemy. In fact the wines were never fortified until the growth of exports and the sack trade made it necessary - and more enjoyable to its markets - much later, in the XVI century.

Arab-style alquitara still (Al-embique.es)

In days of yore wines in butts were loaded into the holds of sailing ships, as often as not as ballast, for a journey which could easily take a week to reach, say, London. The rolling about of the ship and changes in temperature caused the wines to oxidise more, and on longer journeys, they matured more quickly, usually arriving in a condition quite different to that in which they had been sent. Hence the style of Madeira or the East India Sherries: deliberately taken on longer voyages for that reason. The use of fortification proved a very useful form of preservative in the wine, and in the past it was used less sparingly than now.

Interestingly, Sherry is fortified to different strengths for different markets, but this is due to those markets’ taxation regimes. As of 4/6/2014, the UK excise duty on a standard 9 litre case of Sherry is a whopping £32.79 (plus VAT of course), but at least that covers all fortified wines between 15% and 22% volume. In some countries there are multiple rates of tax. The UK duty on table wines up to 15% vol is £24.60 (+VAT).

Fortification is also used by Sherry producers as a tool. If, for example a wine has some fairly thin flor and apparently can’t make up its mind whether to be a Fino or not, then the producers will make the decision and fortify it up to 17 or 18% to be Oloroso/Palo Cortado.  Then there is Jan Pettersen of Rey Fernando de Castilla, who re-fortifies his Antique Fino to 17% vol as he feel it is better that way. I myself remember Finos in the 1960s and 1970s which were even stronger still – and not half as good. So fortification has been reduced generally, both for cost and quality reasons - and, of course, because wines reach their destination much more quickly now. With Finos and Manzanillas, fortification to15-15.5% is necessary, as the desirable yeasts (Flor) can stand it, but undesirable (such as vinegar) yeasts cannot.

But what about the viability of wines without any fortification? Nowadays, they are transported very much quicker, in refrigerated transport if necessary, and Sherry is exported in bottle without any lees to cause trouble. One wonders if fortification is still necessary. The answer to that is yes, but not always. As already mentioned, it is useful in the bodegas, and change would cause chaos, but some wines are now being produced without fortification, and give us a glimpse of how they might have been in the past. Innovation is not a great tradition in Jerez, but recent ideas such as Lustau’s Almacenista range, Barbadillo’s Solear En Rama, VOS/VORS, table wine and even sparkling wine have been noticed. Innovation is in and might well help in the revival of Sherry – by revisiting the past. (Remember Cayetano del Pino's Sparkling Sherry?)

Back in 2005, Equipo Navazos came about when two friends and Sherry lovers found an old unused solera of magnificent Amontillado and decided to buy some and bottle it for themselves. This has developed into a business, and the wines they bottle have won great praise. They have very enquiring minds, and have given immense thought to the wines of the past, which they like to call “Natural Sherries”, but they don’t qualify as “Sherry” officially, as they have lower than permitted alcohol contents.

First they came up with a wine called Vino Blanco Navazos Niepoort, first produced in 2008 with the winemaking skills of Port producer Dirk Nieport and help from Vilaviniteca owner Quim Vila. This is a wine with a natural strength of 12.5% made from Palomino grapes grown on pure Albariza soil near Sanlucar, fermented in butts with natural yeast and bottled after four or five months under Flor. It is an amazing wine with yeasty, slightly oxidative apply notes, very close to how one imagines wines were in the mid XVIII century.

Then they came up with the brilliantly named Vino Blanco MMX Flor Power (bottling No. 44). This is based on the same premise, but more intense, as it is aged longer – 8 months in 15 sherry butts then 24 months in stainless steel tanks – all under Flor, which reduces the alcohol content to 11,5%. It was bottled in 2013 and is now available. They also have a similar project in Montilla, called OVNI.

Another new project is under way at Bodegas Luis Perez in Jerez. This small family owned bodega, established as recently as 2002, is mainly involved with the production of high quality table wines. Their Petit Verdot is already acclaimed and they have just launched a Tintilla. This wine undergoes a second phase of ageing in an amphora 12 metres under the sea.

Last year the bodega bought the famous 30 hectare Viña El Corregidor vineyard in the Carrascal (once Sandeman), with the intention of also producing a vintage unfortified Sherry. The plan is to age it for 4 years under Flor. This means it will need grapes containing more sugar (16% alc vol in the base wine) to give it the higher strength needed as the Flor will reduce that strength. They will need to harvest 2-3 weeks later to achieve this, but experiments in 2013 achieved 16.3%. It will be fermented in 18 butts seasoned with Fino but cleaned of yeast sediments. After fermentation the butts will be filled fuller for ageing, leaving less than the traditional “two fists” of headspace, to avoid excessive Flor. All augurs well so far. Apparently the experimental 2013 is very good with good acidity, lots of bitter almonds and minerality, and very long.

Spectacular Bodega: Luis perez

Jerez’s most famous journalist, Paz Ivison, asked Cesar Saldaña of the Consejo Regulador what his view was on these matters. He was very interested personally, and pointed out that the DO Jerez should be what its producers want it to be, any changes, however, would have to go through endless bureaucratic processes as far as Europe, but it is not impossible.

On a slightly less spectacular note, there is of course, Bodegas Tejero Moreno who own 38 hectares in Jerez Superior. They make a range of basic Sherries but have also been producing Vino de Aguja (lit. "Needle Wine") which is a slightly sparkling wine made from Sherry grapes since 2004. Light and refreshing, it is an everyday drink of no great sophistication.

Not so long ago the Viticultores de Jerez produced not only an Ice Wine, but a low-alcohol wine, but these did not last long on the market. (see separate post) Over the years many ideas have been tried, and
no doubt there will be more interesting ideas. Let’s hope so, it is all to the good of the Sherry region.

{Some information gleaned from "Jerez se Mueve" by Paz Ivison in Planeta Vino (Proensa)}