Vino Blanco Maina Corta y Raspa 2017 13%, Antonio Bernal

Appearance
Pale to mid golden staw with golden highlights.

Nose

Fresh and forthcoming with some depth and sophistication, it has all the appley airs of Palomino and a trace of saltiness while being very well rounded. There is no detectable flor and the nose is of ripe apple and quince with perhaps a faint trace of apricot.

Palate

Very slightly higher acidity than expected and there is a little more of that raw Sanlúcar wildness yet it is nicely balanced with slightly grassy ripe apple hints, a trace of salinity and that classic albariza chalky texture. Tangy, fresh and lively, it is very attractive and might age well for a couple of years.

Comments

This is the second release of this wine which comes from La Charanga vineyard in the northwest part of the pago Maina, a little inland from Sanlúcar, and with barajuela type albariza. The vines are over 30 years old and production is kept low. Antonio Bernal Ortega is a fourth generation grower and leading member of the Mayetería Sanluqueña, the brainchild of Ramiro Ibáñez to provide growers with a more profitable way of selling their grapes. Antonio makes various wines like Moscatel and Tintilla and this wine, made from Palomino, is fermented in butts and bottled with minimal filtration. Only about 1,000 bottles were made.

Price

9.95 euros, De Albariza

Tintilla Dulce Artesanal 2017 9.5%, Antonio Bernal

Appearance
Medium to full depth blacky cherry red with some pink at the rim, garnet highlights.
Nose

Fresh and fruity with aromas of very ripe cherry and redcurrants and perhaps a background trace of rosehip. There are also some of those notes you only get from sunned grapes and traces of raisin and a faint spicy almost cardamom hint. Fruity, interesting and attractive.

Palate

Definitely sweet but not as sweet as the usual Tintilla. It is lighter and less viscous and tastes more like the grape itself unfettered by arrope and still with some primary flavours of the very gently tangy cherry fruit coming through. Raisin flavours are at a minimum and it tastes more or less like a normal red wine but sweeter. It is smooth with no aggressive tannin, and of course it doesn´t cloy.

Comments

This interesting and tasty wine is the product of the vineyard of one of the Mayetos Sanluqueños, the talented Antonio Bernal. It is a sweet wine made from 100% Tintilla de Rota grapes, but not by the usual method which involves the addition of arrope and which tends to have a brownish colour. He simply uses super ripe grapes with very brief sunning and adds a little alcohol to the fermentation which stops it at only 9.5% leaving a wine which is sweet, but not nearly as sweet as the standard version, with an attractive red colour and many fewer oxidative notes, much less alcohol and much more fruit. Only a very small amount was made (which would make it less of a pain to handwrite the info on each bottle!) and so it is only available in Sanlúcar.

Price
9.50 per half bottle, De Albariza