Vino Blanco Mirabrás 2017 15%, Barbadillo

Appearance

Slightly brassy strawy gold with golden highlights.

Nose

Lovely fresh herbaceous nose with plenty of seaside character and just a little flor allowing some notes of appley Palomino fruit through. There are all sorts of background subtleties like traces of candied fruit, tarte tatin and camomile which give it a delightful zesty youthfulness and a gentle richness as well, with a faint saline trace at the back. Subtle and classy.

Palate

Beautifully balanced and smooth with fairly low acidity letting the perfectly ripe fruit shine through. The 15% alcohol seems to bring out more depth of flavour without making it feel any stronger, and it certainly feels rounder. Needless to say there is a slight chalky texture and a hint of salinity but over all it is fruity, and with a lovely twist of flor at the end.

Comments

Mirabrás is a wonderfully interesting project, run by Montse Molina and Armando Guerra, which runs the gauntlet between classic Sanlúcar vino blanco and Manzanilla. There are only six toneles of wine yet every release is different. For example the 2016 was 13.5% and this 2017 is 15%, and in between there was a tiny release of 2012 Manzanilla Mirabrás (qv). They are really having fun, but also coming up with delicious and seriously interesting wines. Surprisingly this release has 15%, probably due to some sunning, but at only a year and a half or so of crianza, mostly in toneles filled to the top , it cannot officially be a Manzanilla. 5322 bottles.

Price
14 euros, Licores Corredera

8.7.19 Barbadillo Launches Verdejo Made in Jerez

Bodegas Barbadillo have launched a new wine called Erytea, made from the Verdejo grape. In the lare 1990s Barbadillo began experimenting with planting foreign grape varieties in their vineyards including Riesling, Sauvignon and Chardonnay. In 2007 they brought six clones of Verdejo to see how they would grow in the chalky albariza soils of the Finca Santa Lucía near Jerez. The vines adapted to their new conditions remarkably well and now extend to some 25 hectares. Verdejo is a Spanish variety native to the north west and is enormously popular at the moment. The wine´s name, Erytea, refers to Cádiz which is considered the oldest city in the west. Over its near 3,000 year history it has develod into an archipelago of three islands which the Greeks called Gadeiras, Erytheia and Hispania. The bottle is designed top pay homage to the Greeks who settled and christened the bay of Cádiz.

Manzanilla Mirabrás 2014 Edición Limitada 15%, Barbadillo

Appearance

Strrawy golden yellow with bright golden highlights.

Nose

Classic and extraordinarily complex Manzanilla with notes of straw, mostly dried herbs, seaside salinity, olive brine, traces of sourdough bread crust, even toasted bread, and acetaldehyde. The flor bitterness is pronounced and there are slightly buttery hints of cabezuela as well, and yet there still remains just a hint of the original Palomino table wine. Super subtle, balanced and elegant.

Palate

Verging on intense but extremely refined. There is still just a trace of lightness and appley fruit behind all the flor and that slightly buttery cabezuela note rounding it off. It is incredibly smooth with the characteristic dry chalky texture from the albariza and a hint of salinity at the end. The key word is balance, there are just so many subtle flavours here, bur all beautifully integrated in a hand made wine watched over with love at every stage. Excellent wine.

Comments

The fascinating Mirabrás project began with the idea of using grapes from 40 year old plus Palomino vines in the Cerro de Leyes vineyard in Santa Lucía to make a classic unfortified Sanlúcar Vino Blanco the way it used to be made: briefly sunning the grapes in the vineyard, fermenting with natural yeasts and ageing on fine lees in toneles well seasoned with Manzanilla and full to restrict flor growth. The first release was the 2014 vintage which was aged for 14 months, first in tanks and then toneles with flor allowed to develop, but not enough to transform the wine, which was then bottled en rama. The vintage currently on sale is the 2017, but the bodega has already sold out, unsurprisingly.

This, by contrast, is an unreleased and very limited version of it, also from 2014, statically aged and from a single tonel, but the wine has remained in it since it was transferred from tank in 2016. It was then made into a fully fledged vintage Manzanilla. Thanks to the sunning, the wine already had some 13.5% so very little alcohol was required to bring it up to 15% and flor was allowed to develop. Its development was assisted by the occasional "saca en falso" which involves removing some of the wine and then putting it back again which gives the flor more air and the wine a trace more oxidation. It was bottled en rama in January 2019.

Price

N/A commercially

 

Manzanilla en rama Nave Trinidad 15%, Barbadillo

Appearance

Faintly brassy strawy gold with golden highlights.

Nose

Very fresh with delicate floral and herbal notes and with the bitter almondy flor characteristics kept to a minimum, though there is a certain yeastiness. There are traces of briny salinity too, and while it is (deliberately) a less complex and intense wine than the firm´s other en ramas, it exudes freshness and charm, getting a shade more complex as it warms up.

Palate

Light, clean and fresh, fairly zesty with distant echoes of fruit along with grassy hints of green meadow herbs, and a trace of camomile (manzanilla in Spanish). Acidity is perfect and there is a very faint trace of chalky texture, while the finish is clean and long with a little complexity sneaking in there - and rather moreish.

Comments

This is a completely new and very good Manzanilla en rama from Barbadillo which, while it has great quality, is intended to fill a gap between regular Manzanilla and the more complex and expensive Manzanillas pasadas en rama like Solear Pastora and Arboledilla, providing a very characterful wine at a reasonable price and aimed at younger people. This is also reflected in the label design. The firm´s oenologist, Montse Molina, has created a particular solera of 36 butts for this wine by selecting suitable wines from criaderas in the main solera, mainly those housed in the bodega El Toro, the firm´s first bodega. This XIX century bodega is designed on traditional lines with four warehouses built round a square patio, each giving – over time – slight differences in ageing conditions. One of these warehouses (“naves” in Spanish) is called “Trinidad”. This delicious new wine has an average age of four years and is only available in ½ bottles, 20,000 in this first saca. I can´t imagine how Barbadillo could have done a better job in fulfilling the brief they set themselves. Trinidad is also a Spanish girl´s name which keeps the brand to the feminine tradition for Manzanilla brand names.

Price

8.50 euros, De Albariza

Manzanilla Pasada Solear en rama Primavera 2019 15%, Barbadillo

Appearance

Mid strawy gold with golden highlights.

Nose

Fresh, with beach-like aromas and lots of doughy, bready, almost toastyy yeastiness with hints of olive brine. It is very slightly closed and less effusive than the summer and winter bottlings but certainly not short of aromas. There are also looming pasada notes of cabezuela and faint oxidation.

Palate

Clean, tangy and complex with that lovely slightly buttery roundness which balances with the dry, faintly bitter flor and gentle salinity. All the characteristics are very subtle as the yeasts curbed their reproductive activity over the winter months, but it gives a nice tight style of wine.

Comments

This lovely Manzanilla started life being hand picked in the vineyards of Gibalbín and Santa Lucía and later becoming Solear once it aged in solera for 6 years. It was then transferred for a further 2 years of ageing to another 550 butt  solera in two clases in the El Potro bodega. Here it takes on the pasada characteristics which give it greater depth and complexity. 15 butts are then selected and 100 litres were drawn from each on the 22nd March 2019 for bottling en rama. The quarterly saca is made at the beginning of each new season and represents the prevailing conditions of the last one. The remaining wine in the solera will go on to supply the Amontillado solera.

Price

14 euros per half bottle, Licores Corredera

Manzanilla Pasada Solear en Rama Invierno 2018 15%, Barbadillo

Appearance

Bright, very slightly brassy gold with golden highlights.

Nose
Forthcoming with lots of very slightly buttery bitter almondy flor with hints of esparto and dried herbs and a slightly saline fresh sea air note. There are gentle hints of cabezuela which give complexity yet the wine is very slightly reserved and a little less assertive than the spring and autumn sacas which is only to be expected as the flor is more intense then.

Palate

Considerable intensity of yeasty flavour with that rich buttery autolytic character carried through by perfectly restrained acidity which gives the wine balance and a gentle tang without excessive bite. There are notes of humidity, salinity and a dry chalky texture but everything is delightfully harmonious and the wine has terrific length.

Comments

Bottled en rama in January 2018 and made from vines over 30 years old. Wine is drawn from the Solear solera at about six years old and goes to another 550 butt solera of two clases where it ages in the firm´s El Potro bodega for another two years before a selection of the best 15 butts is made of approximately 100 litres per butt.

Price

14 euros per half bottle, Licores Corredera

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

Manzanilla Pasada Solear en rama Saca Otoño 18 15%, Barbadillo

Appearance

Attractive deep gold to amber colour with old gold reflections.

Nose

Forthcoming and quite full and deep with lots of yeasty humidity. The characteristic flor bitterness is more or less balanced with notes of cabezuela, toasted almond, esparto and slight traces of oxidation giving it a beautifully complex yet lively briny pasada character.

Palate

Good and dry with perfect acidity and a touch of bitterness, it is very clean and fresh and almost zippy then the older flavours, the cabezuela and oxidation come through making it richer and more serious with a saline twist in the tail. Super clean, tasty and long. Lovely.

Comments

This is the autumn release of this excellent Manzanilla. The grapes came, as usual, from the firm´s extensive vineyards of Gibalbin and Santa Lucia and from vines with over 30 years of age. The wine spent its first 6 years of crianza in the Solear solera until it was transferred to a further 550 butt, 2 criadera solera in the bodega El Potro for a further 2 years of ageing where it reaches the Manzanilla pasada stage before the saca was made from 15 selected butts, taking 100 litres from each. It was finally bottled unfiltered on the 3rd October 2018.

Price

14.30 per half bottle, Licores Corredera

Manzanilla Pasada Pastora en rama saca 2018 15%, Barbadillo

Appearance
Bright, slightly amber tinged gold with golden highlights.

Nose

Forthcoming and refined with all the complexities of traces of cabezuela, faint oxidative notes, hints of straw and dry herbs, butter and notes of seaside all beautifully homogenised. It is super elegant and fresh for a wine of nine years of age with loads of subtlety wrapped in a beautiful package.

Palate

The same can be said for the palate only it is a little fuller and beautifully rounded, just shy of crisp but super clean and fresh with the characteristic Manzanilla salinity and traces of buttery autolysis all but balanced out by a dry chalky texture. Tremendous depth of flavour and great length.

Comments

Pastora was the first ever Manzanilla to be sold in bottle in 1827 and was very popular during the XIX century and with the Royal Family, but for some reason, possibly Manzanilla Fina or lack of promotion, it disappeared from the market. Thankfully it was reintroduced in 2015 - so this is the fourth release - and it is superb. Its origins are in the Solear solera and wine is extracted for further ageing in the bodega Las Pastoras, located at the edge of the embankment which divides the Barrio Alto from the Barrio Bajo, facing the river. It has the perfect environment for ageing Manzanilla, and this wine was bottled en rama with nearly 9 years of average age on May 11th 2018.

Price

14 euros per half bottle ex bodega

Brandy BB Solera 36%, Bodegas Barbadillo

Appearance
Amber going towards mahogany with golden and copper highlights.
Nose

Quite young but not lacking in aroma and the smell of young spirit balances well with Oloroso which is not over intense. There are traces of vanilla, raisin and caramel and faint ones of American oak, and it has a youthful and fairly lively character which might well appeal to younger folk for cocktails.

Palate

It starts fairly crisp then soon opens out quite generously into a smooth classic Brandy de Jerez style but tight and fresh. There is a certain complexity too, with toasted nuts, Oloroso, raisin, caramel and hints of wood and brown sugar all combining to form a very decent whole with good length.

Comments

This is Barbadillo´s entry level Brandy solera, but it is pretty sound stuff. It is a blend of column and pot still spirits with more than half being distilled at low strength for flavour. The blend is aged in butts well seasoned with Oloroso in solera, emerging a year later for bottling. The sugar content is about 15 g/l. some of which comes from a tiny quantity of added PX but the spirit doesn´t appear particularly sweet. All the writing on the lower part of the bottle  is marketing stuff to make it appeal to the youth of today, eg. "Seductive and Rebellious", and tasting notes.

Price

6.90 ex bodega

Blanco de Blancos 2017 11.5%, Barbadillo

Appearance
Bright, pale, almost silvery strawy gold with golden reflections.

Nose

Young, light, fresh and quite aromatic with hints of tropical fruit like white peach, guava and a hint of pineapple. The hallmark Sauvignon greenness is slightly mute being grown so far south, but the blend works as it balances with the more aromatic Moscatel. I can´t quite make out what the Verdejo does, but there is the faintest mineral note, from the soil presumably.

Palate

Dry, fresh, with a reasonably crisp acidity, and all those exotic fruit flavours up to a point, but now there are more orchard fruit flavours like apple and hint of pear blending in. There is a faint grapeskin texture and a slight chalky feel, and the acidity carries the fruit through to the decently long finish.

Comments

Blanco de Blancos is a translation of the Champagne term "blanc de blancs" meaning a white wine made with white grapes - as nearly all are, naturally - but in Champagne many white wines are made using red grapes as well. A "Blanc de Noirs" is a Champagne made only with red grapes though the finished product is white. So the B de B term has little meaning elsewhere, and this wine is made from 100% white grapes which are: Sauvignon Blanc, Verdejo and "Moscato" (Moscatel). I think "Moscato" is trendier at the moment. They are grown in a total of 33 hectares in the firm´s Gibalbin and Santa Lucia vineyards with albariza soil and harvested at first light. They are vinified separately, first going to tanks where they are allowed to run off the free run juice at 12 degrees C which  is then fermented at controlled temperature using selected yeasts. After fermentation the three wines are left on their lees for a couple of months before being blended, stabilised and bottled.

Price
8.95, Licores Corredera

Manzanilla Arboledilla Poniente 2018 15%, Barbadillo

Appearance
Pale to mid strawy gold with golden highlights, very slightly paler than Levante.
Nose

Very fresh with  more grassy herbal aromas rather than the more esparto like nose of Levante, and it smells lighter and a little zippier, younger even, and more yeasty. It is also less saline on the nose though there is still a maritime note.

Palate

As the nose suggests, it is also lighter on the palate, less intense and appears less mature. It is super clean and fresh with a little more zip than the slightly more plodding (by comparison) Levante and has no pasada character, and a bit less salt, rather retaining its charming herbal style. Delicious.

Comments

There really are noticeable differences between these two lovely wines, yet they are both classic examples of good Manzanilla. This is the second annual release of the Manzanillas Poniente and Levante, which come from the same Solear solera, but from opposite sides of the bodega, enough to make them slightly different. All wines have their terroir, but in the Marco de Jerez there are three: the vineyard, the bodega and even the butt itself. The Poniente (west) side of the bodega is slightly cooler and it shows in the wine, which is a fraction less intense, but perhaps a fraction more elegant. Both wines were made in an identical manner, and drawn from selected butts for maximum character and bottled en rama in February 2018. They are terrific on their own, but it is fascinating to compare them side by side and observe the effect of between 5 and 6 years at either side of the same bodega can have.

Price

12.50 euros, Licores Corredera

Manzanilla Arboledilla Levante 2018 15%, Barbadillo

Appearance
Pale to mid strawy gold, golden highlights, if anything a fraction deeper that Poniente.

Nose

Fresh and very saline with notes of straw and dry herbs. The flor is not over pronounced but there is certainly a slight bitter aldehydic note along with olive brine and sourdough. It seems just a shade fuller and more mature than Poniente yet a little less herbal. Classic Manzanilla, though.

Palate

Fairly full, saline, attractively bitter and quite complex with olive brine flavours and faint traces of butteriness and cabezuela, even a distant hint of oxidation.  This Levante is slightly more "pasada" than the Poniente, and quite delicious.

Comments

The bodega Arboledilla is possibly the finest in Sanlúcar. This large bodega sits at the eastern edge of the Barrio Alto looking out over the Guadalquivir estuary and is protected by a sort of garden of trees (hence its name) from the Levante and from the busy road which connects the two barrios. This is where the famous Manzanilla Solear is aged, and this wine is effectively much the same at between 5 and 6 years´ average age, only it is made from a selection of butts and bottled en rama in February 2018. It is one of a pair, however. The other wine is called Poniente, and the only difference between the two is that they come from butts stored at either side of the bodega to show how the internal environment can vary and the difference which that can make to the wine, not immense, but noticeable. It is a fascinating idea, and when this pair was launched last year it quickly sold out.

Price
12.50 euros Licores Corredera

Manzanilla Pasada en rama Solear saca Verano 2018 15%, Barbadillo

Appearance
Bright amber-tinged gold with golden highlights.
Nose

Intense and attractive, very yeasty and fresh with hints of sourdough, straw, esparto and dry grassy scrubland with some herbs, yet there is a slightly saline humid air about it and a hint of autolysis from the cabezuela balanced by a lovely bitter flor note. It is complex, homogeneous and lovely.

Palate

It starts off big and rich yet becomes elegant and dry, it has good acidity yet also a certain creaminess which along with that flor bitterness excites the palate splendidly. There's a faint strawy almond  pastry note, traces of herbs and dough, but above all yeast. This is a lovely wine.

Comments

As usual, the wine comes from the firm's own vineyards in Gibalbin and Santa Lucia and has an average age of about 8 years. It was selected from 15 butts in the 550 butt intermediate solera in the bodega El Potro, about 100 litres from each, and filled into 4,000 half bottles in early June with the minimum possible of filtration and a decent quality natural cork. The solera was then topped up with Solear aged about 6 years. The summer saca naturally shows the state of the flor during the preceding 3 months of spring when the flor is at its thickest, and this year spring was comparatively cool making the wine so delightfully yeasty.

Price
14.30 euros per half bottle Licores Corredera

Vermut Atamán 17%, Bodegas Barbadillo

Appearance
Deep brown mahogany fading to amber with copper glints.
Nose
Forthcoming and complex with pronounced sweet notes of caramel, orange peel, brown sugar and Oloroso and background traces of raisin, mint, menthol, eucalyptus, wormwood and quinine. It has elements of both Jerez Quina or even Ponche but there's more to it with all those botanicals. It seems fairly straightforward at first but quickly develops all sorts of nuances as it opens out
Palate
Quite sweet and fairly fruity initially with orange notes until the bitterness kicks in pushing the sweetness into the background and delivering quite a drying, bitter punch with loads of quinine and wormwood in contrast to the sweet luscious texture. A fantastic sweet ying and bitter yang balance makes it very stylish - and moreish - with great length, and it is lovely chilled on its own or mixed in all sorts of drinks. As Eddie Cochran would have said, "it's something else".
Comments

An Ataman is a Cossack leader or fighting horseman of the Caucasus where Russia meets Turkey, and perhaps this fierceness has something in common with the name of the brand. Certainly those at the bodega nowadays can find no reason for Manuel Barbadillo to choose this name for the brand he launched in 1943. After over four decades languishing in butts and demijohns at the firm's Angioletti and El Toro bodegas, it has now been re-launched, on the 75th anniversary or the original launch, as Barbadillo's unique contribution to the Vermouth revival. First the bodega launched tiny quantities of the original in half bottles (at 50 euros each) but has now launched a new version. Since the original recipe has disappeared, a lot of work has gone in to recreate the vermouth, which is sold using the original logo. It is made from a base of Manzanilla and Oloroso infused with a secret mix of herbs and botanicals which include wormwood, cassia (a kind of cinnamon), bitter orange peel, rosemary and elderberries, macerated in butts. Only small batches of 1,500 bottles are being released. It is a little more bitter than most vermouths and could almost be called a bitters, so it has infinite mixing and cocktail potential.

Price
14,95 per 50cl, De Albariza

Manzanilla Pasada Solear en rama Spring 2018 15%, Barbadillo

Appearance

Brass tinged bright gold with golden highlights.

Nose

Forthcoming and complex with lots of yeasty flor, sourdough and olive brine and saline marine notes along with plenty of bitterness and faint hints of dry herbs and butter. It is super fresh and zesty with more serious background notes of yeast autolysis adding to that complexity yet melding beautifully together to form a delicious whole.

Palate

Full and assertive up front with a delightful yeasty almondy bitterness, and once the initial attack subsides it leaves a super clean sophisticated Manzanilla with lots of nuances such as faint salinity, traces of straw and dry scrub and doughy olive brine. Balance is perfect, and it is so refreshing one needs to take care not to drink it too quickly and miss some of its lovely character.
Comments

This wine, first released in 1999, is now in its 19th year and is as good as ever. March was very wet, and along with April, on the cool side, creating perfect conditions for the flor to flourish, and it is certainly very pronounced in this wine. As always it consists of standard 6 years old Solear aged for an extra 2 years in an intermediate solera before the Amontillado solera and bottled in half bottles and magnums, en rama, naturally.

Price

14,30 per half bottle, Licores Corredera

Manzanilla Pasada Solear en rama Invierno 2017 15%, Barbadillo

Appearance
Bright, slightly brassy gold with golden highlights.
Nose
Bold and forthcoming with lots of yeasty bitter flor and almond from the acetaldehyde, dry scrubland, yet there is a certain humidity, saline with notes of olive brine, butter, sourdough and straw, and very slightly herbal, classic crianza biologica and very attractive.
Palate
Clean, fresh and intense with lots of toasted and un-toasted nuts, good racy acidity and lots of bitterness with all the underlying complexity imparted by the yeast. It is a serious wine, lively, bitter and saline at the same time but softened by the buttery notes. It is delicious.
Comments

Grown in the firm's 500 hectares of vineyard at Gibalbin and Santa Lucia planted over 30 years ago, the grapes went on to produce Manzanilla Solear. After about six years solera ageing most of the wine goes for bottling as Solear while some goes for a further two years ageing in an intermediate solera of 550 butts in two scales leading eventually to the Amontillado Principe solera. From the intermediate solera 100 litres are drawn from 15 selected butts to make a special blend which highlights the state of the wine at the time of the saca (11/12/17). It has about 8 years solera age and by now the flor is getting a little thinner. Each saca is done at the beginning of the season and reflects the state of the wine over the previous three months. If you are interested, the bird on the label is the endangered Marsh Harrier.

Price
14.30 per half bottle, Licores Corredera

Amontillado Principe VORS 21.5%, Barbadillo

Appearance

Antique mahogany with bright copper glints fading through amber to a hint of green at the rim.

Nose

Packed with toasted nuts and a hint of marzipan, old oak and a trace of "bodega" with saline notes balancing tantalisingly with hints of slightly caramel-like sweetness. It is extremely refined, fresh, lively and intense with considerable charm and sophistication, always backed with gentle oak notes.
Palate
Concentrated and full yet elegant at the same time, there are faint traces of smoke, beaches, hints of oak and lots of nuts. Suggestions of nutty dried fruit and almond in caramel sweetness balance with hints of unaggressive tannin and an element of salinity, and the whole is very generous, a wine to really get your teeth into! And very long, superb.
Comments

The wine began life as a Manzanilla in the Solear solera where it spent six years before spending two more years in the two-scale pasada solera. With eight years under flor, it was then re-fortified to 18° to begin the oxidative period and entered the Amontillado Príncipe solera, gaining another seven years and then entered the VORS solera in the bodega El Potro where it spent over twenty years in butts filled  “a tocadedos” (to the top) before bottling, having passed through nineteen scales. It must be exhausted! But it doesn’t show. Things used to be nice and simple; Príncipe was the superior Amontillado and the VORS was the top one, but Barbadillo have changed things so that now there are two versions of it: Príncipe 12 years old and Príncipe VORS. The same applies to the rest of the superior range and the VORS wines are now in half bottles sealed with a driven cork and wax and packed in a little black gift box, and it is more expensive than before. Still, I thought it would be worth another look. A total of about 2,000 half bottles are released in one annual saca.

Price

44.80 euros per half bottle, Licores Corredera

Zerej II Palo Cortado 20%, Barbadillo

Appearance

Bright clean amber tinged chestnut to mahogany with coppery gold glints, fading through amber to a trace of green at the rim.
Nose
Attractive start with plenty of toasted almond and hazelnut, faint buttery and bitter orange notes along with a certain crispness and faint bitterness, from its Sanlucar origins presumably. There are suggestions of salted caramel and just a hint of oak. It is very much Amontillado in character, yet there is a certain weight in the background. Subtle, nuanced and appealing.

Palate

It is definitely fuller on the palate with more Oloroso character showing through yet remains extremely elegant and there is a perfect counterpoise between Amontillado and Oloroso. It is beautifully rounded with an attractive open texture, now with hints of walnut, leather and tobacco, very faint hints of tannin, and the whole comes together with delightful complexity. This seems to be a wine one could enjoy at any stage of its production. Superb.
Comments

This delightful wine is one of four magnums in the second release of the Zerej and is the oldest wine in the set. After ageing briefly under flor the wine was re-fortified and aged oxidatively for an average of 25 years in a very old solera. The Palo Cortado is bottled at various ages, the youngest being the 15 year old Obispo Gascón, followed by the VORS (now also named Obispo Gascón) which is well over 30 and the rare (barely 40 bottles a year) Reliquia at around 100 years. It is interesting to see the wine in a roughly half way stage between two younger bottlings, and it comes from one butt laboriously selected by Montse Molina and Armando Guerra, bottled without any filtration or stabilisation in March 2017.

Price
180 euros for the set of 4 magnums, no individual price but excellent value.

Mirabrás 2016 13.5%, Barbadillo

Appearance
Deep bright straw gold with golden highlights.
Nose
Serious, with  lots of nuances; fruity ones like apple - even a faint cider-like hint, herbal ones like camomile and fresh straw, traces of flor and a gentle sweeter, almost honey-like tone possibly from the asoleado. Not far removed from Manzanilla with its light marine notes, yet fruitier and with less flor and alcohol. And there is a certain weight to it. Very attractive.
Palate

Tangy apple,bitter hints of flor and a saline note instantly give away its origins and grape variety. There is also a slightly chalky mineral feel and a decent level of acidity which give it a decent bite and some of the classic Sanlucar wildness and probably some bottle ageing potential, especially if the 2014 is anything to go by. Both delicious and interesting.

Comments

The wine is named after the Mirabrás which is a style of Flamenco associated with Sanlúcar, hence the label design. The wine itself is even more interesting, however. It is made the old fashioned way from 100% old vine (45 years old) Palomino grown in the firm's Cerro de Leyes vineyard which is part of their larger Finca Santa Lucia. The grapes are sunned briefly before fermentation using natural yeast in toneles seasoned with Manzanilla. It remains for some 14 months on its lees, without batonnage, in a mix of the same toneles and some tanks where flor is allowed to develop, but to a small extent as the toneles are filled "a tocadedos". It was bottled without filtration in December 2017 and a total of just over 5,000 bottles were available.

Price
16,95 euros, De Albariza