La Fleur 2015 13.5%, Bodegas Forlong

Appearance
Mid depth brassy gold with golden highlights.
Nose
Quite full with pronounced notes of ripe apple and pear skin, it is fairly yeasty but only traces of flor and slight traces of salinity and oxidation, hints of straw and sourdough, along with candied lemon peel, hints, not a million miles from a Fino, yet not, a serious wine though, and different.
Palate

Again, quite full, approaching intense, strawy with a chalky albariza texture and a touch of salinity and a decent acidity. This interesting, complex and fairly unique wine lies somewhere between the Jura and Sherry. It is multifaceted; fresh and zippy, and Sherry-like at the same time, packed with flavour, and it has terrific length.

Comments

Another excellent and interesting wine from this go-ahead young bodega. La Fleur is 100% Palomino grown organically in the finca Forlong in the pago Balbaina Baja. The vineyard, which is close to El Puerto de Santa Maria, once belonged to the XIX century shippers Matthiesen Furlong. After fermentation the wine is allowed to age in a butt for two years under flor before being hand bottled en rama. I was a little surprised at the slight oxidative notes after 2 years under flor, but they do add complexity. Unfortunately, the production is tiny with just 600 bottles. It would be worth keeping for 2-3 years as well. Seek it out!

Price
30 euros per 50cl, Guerrita

Table Wine Bodegas: Forlong

Established by a young couple from El Puerto de Santa María, Alejandro Narváez and Rocío Áspera in 2009, this bodega has gone from strength to strength. It started as a passion, became a dream and later a reality, and all the more impressive in the depths of an economic crisis. Alejandro had studied marketing and Rocío had studied business, but their career path changed when Rocío’s father bought the land known as La Finca del Olivar in 2007 and planted a hectare with vines. They made the first wine in 2009 and fell in love with the idea. Alejandro then studied viticulture and oenology gaining further experience in Bordeaux, while Rocío studied viti-viniculture in hot climates and worked for a while at Bodegas Luis Pérez.

Alejandro & Rocio with their wines standing in front of the tinajas.

The vineyard is in the pago Balbaina Baja near El Puerto and once belonged to Charles Furlong, British Vice Consul and partner in the long gone Sherry producer Matthiesen Furlong. They have been farming it biodynamically and hold a certificate of organic agriculture for which they had to go through a three year conversion period. Inspectors visit every year to check that no chemicals are being used, and they are not as these two passionately believe that the vineyard should be reflected in the wine, and the better the grapes, the better it is. They now have two further vineyards; in Balbaina Alta between Jerez and Sanlúcar, and another, La Greduela, located four kilometres east of Jerez where they grow four hectares of red grapes. The Balbaina vineyards have albariza soils and La Greduela has more clayey soils which help to emphasise the fruitiness in the wine. A total of eleven hectares are currently planted, though they are not all in production yet.

(foto: Cristo Garcia)

Until finance could be raised to construct the bodega, Alejandro and Rocío made the wine using the facilities at Sancha Pérez at Conil before the first Forlong wines were released in February 2014; 2,000 bottles of Petit Forlong red and 1,000 of Forlong Blanco. One approaches the bodega, which is in the middle of the vineyard, down a track lined with mulberry trees, passing the small olive grove. Here, various winemaking techniques are employed including fermentation in steel tanks, barrels and eight tinajas (huge clay jars). Barrel ageing is carried out in a fantastically humid cellar. Innovation and experimentation are bywords here with, for example, Palomino made using the red wine process and aged in ex Oloroso butts, while they are also fermenting in tinajas and experimenting with different periods of oak ageing, and proportions of grape varieties in the blends, not to mention sparkling wine.

The vineyards are planted to Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, Tintilla, Merlot, Palomino and Pedro Ximenez. Grapes are harvested manually, selected and stored in a cold room at about 4-5 C for 24 hours and destemmed before winemaking commences. Only natural yeasts are used. Crianza takes place in the cellar below the bodega, and is kept to a minimum to allow wines to develop in bottle.

Production has grown from the initial 3,000 bottles to the current 60,000, with seven different wines on the market. A further two wines are made exclusively for the Michelin starred Aponiente restaurant in El Puerto run by Ángel León, one of which is sparkling and called simply Burbujas (Bubbles).  Thanks to the quality and innovative style of not only the wines, but also the lovely labels designed by Victoria Cerezo Doello, they have no trouble selling them and nearly all are sold locally, but they would like to grow and sell internationally. Given their varied and proven skills, this should not be a problem, and export success would be well deserved.

White wines:

Blanco Forlong

El Amigo Imaginario

80/20

Rose wines:

Rosado Forlong

Red wines:

Assemblage Tinto

Petit Forlong

Tintilla

Address: Carretera Jerez - Rota Km 6, 11500 El Puerto de Santa María, Cadiz.

Telephone: (00 34) 620 211 203 (mobile)

Website: www.bodegadeforlong.com (still in construction)

Visits: would need to be arranged

Forlong Vino Blanco 80/20 12.9%, Bodegas Forlong

Appearance

Interesting colour, ever so very faintly pink, almost as if a single drop of red had been added - which it hasn't. Legs.

Nose

Very forthcoming and bursting with glacé fruits and an appearance of sweetness. Ripe apples, pears, a floral note and a trace of chalkiness and grapeskin along with the slightest hint of raisin. This looks really interesting.

Palate

There is a touch of sweetness, presumably from the PX skins, but that sweetness is the result of fairly low acidity as much as residual sugar, though there must be  just a little. All those orchard fruits give it an easy charm, gentle texture, lots of flavour and good length.

Comments

As always, another very interesting wine from Alejandro and Rocío's little organic albariza vineyard and bodega just outside El Puerto de Santa María. The wine is 100% Palomino and the reason for the name is that 80% of the Palomino comes from their own vineyard, being carefully fermented in stainless steel tanks the normal way. The other 20%, also Palomino, comes from the viña Plantalina in the pago Balbaina Alta. These grapes are cold macerated and cold fermented along with Pedro Ximénez skins like in a red wine fermentation, to extract deeper aroma and flavour. The skins are extracted after 25 days and the resulting wine is aged and settled in tank on its lees for around five months and bottled with virtually no filtration. It is a Vino de la Tierra de Cádiz and proves that Palomino can and does have flavour. If only their wines were more widely available! Printed on the (good quality) cork is a quote from Walt Whitman's poem "Song of Myself" which is about nature and belonging to it.

Price

10.50 Licores Corredera

El Amigo Imaginario 2015 12.5%, Bodegas Forlong

Appearance

Bright almost lemon yellow to amber with golden highlights, pronounced legs.

Nose

Very attractive - big, soft, generous, classy and open with detectable texture from the grape skins. It is not totally unlike a Meursault but has more tropical notes of pineapple and mango along with a gentle nutty and slightly mineral undertow. The Oloroso is notable more for its contribution to the complexity of the nose than for its aroma, but there is a tantalising something there. 

Palate

Every bit as sophisticated as the nose. There is a perfect and exhilarating balance of fruit and gentle acidity, with an easygoing texture and a delightful almond nuttiness with an intensity of flavour which lingers on and on. There is even a very slight trace of ginger or cinnamon like German Lebküchen on the finish. This wine is superb.

Comments

This innovative wine is made by inspired winemakers Rocío Áspero and Alejandro Narváez who have just released it. It is made by the red wine process in their small bodega near El Puerto de Santa María. It is made from old vine 100% Balbaina Alta Palomino grapes, grown organically in albariza. The grapes are picked and sorted by hand in the vineyard and, on arrival at the bodega in plastic boxes, they are refrigerated to around 3-4 C for 24 hours. They are then sorted again before being de-stemmed, and the whole grapes are put into a temperature- controlled tank where fermentation takes place with natural yeasts. During the 25 days of fermentation the wine is stirred daily for better extraction, and after fermentation the wine and skins go to the press. The skin-free wine is then transferred to a butt (yes, just one butt!) seasoned with Oloroso which is filled to the top to avoid flor and oxidation, and here it undergoes its malo-lactic fermentation, remaining there for 10 months before being aged in bottle for 4 months before sale. Only 612 hand numbered bottles were produced, all sealed with wax and a driven cork on which are printed quotes from Walt Whitman.

Price

16 euros from Licores Corredera