Manzanilla La Guita en rama Oct 2017 15%, La Guita

Appearance
Slightly brassy, yellowy gold with bright brassy gold highlights.

Nose

Highly aromatic and intense with lots of bright, zippy, racy maritime character and a gentle note of oxidation. Seaweed, dry scrub, olive brine and traces of iodine, even cider add to the mix which includes some flor bitterness as well. 

Palate

Full and savoury with plenty flor and lots of sea salt and mineral and decent acidity giving a lively and deeply tasty wine. There is a trace of oxidation and some buttery, nutty autolytic yeastiness which adds more complexity, making it taste more like Manzanilla pasada. This is lovely.
Comments

This second saca of La Guita en rama is just as classic as the first and took place in October 2017 when the flor was judged to be at its best. A rigorous selection was made of wines ageing at both Bodega La Misericordia and Bodega Pago Sanlúcar Viejo, wines which have been aged a bit longer than those for the normal La Guita, being well over 5 years old. They were chosen for their classic Manzanilla character and especially for the intense minerality, salinity and sheer wild expressiveness of La Guita at its best. Absolutely no filtration or stabilisation was done which explains the wine’s slightly darker colour than normal. The image on the label represents the main tower of the mudéjar church of Nuestra Señora de la O dating from 1360. It was here where the few remaining of Magellan’s crew gave thanks for their survival in 1522.

Price
7,90 euros per half bottle, La Tienda del Jerez

Manzanilla La Guita en rama 2015 15%, La Guita

Appearance

Quite deep in colour, strawy golden amber, some legs.

Nose

There's no doubt where this wine comes from! A cool salty breeze cuts through albariza with notes of rope and olive brine. There is a gentle nuttiness and traces of malt and dried fruit, representing a hint of oxidation and giving weight and complexity as well as balance. This has real character.

Palate

Similar on the palate, full, fairly crisp and just so interesting, with a good salty tang and some flor bitterness, lots of grip with some slightly buttery notes of the yeast from the bottom of the butt and a really long satisfying nutty finish. This was selected from some serious butts.

Comments

The grapes are all from Sanlúcar mainly from Miraflores and the wine is from a careful selection of butts at both bodegas: Misericordia and Pago Sanlúcar Viejo. There will be a different label for each release, and this one represents the portal of the XVI century Antiguo Hospital de la Misericordia which is now one of the bodegas. The wine is aged approximately 5 years, being much the same age as normal La Guita, but the particularly careful selection of butts was intended to show Manzanilla in its maximum glory, so this is really quite a different wine with much more depth, made for real Sherry lovers, and it shows just how much is lost in filtration. It was bottled in October 2015 and is excellent value for money.

Price

7 euros per half bottle

Manzanilla en Rama I Think 15% Saca Abril 2012, Equipo Navazos

Appearance

Deepish strawy brassy gold, almost perfectly bright with some legs.

Nose

Intense Sanlúcar character: salty and briny with strong flor notes and a trace of oxidation and that smell from rope used to tie up fishing boats, dry scrubland that has just seen a little rain, a trace of olives, autolysis, yeasty sourdough, but overall very maritime. This is full-on and wildly attractive.

Palate

Full, it has quite a tang as well as lots of flor bitterness, salty and yeasty, and despite that trace of oxidation , the oleic note and a hint of autolysis it tastes very fresh. It is a beautifully constituted wine bursting with character and has terrific length. Fine seafood deserves no less.

Comments

Manzanillas and Finos tend to be drawn from the solera in spring or autumn, when the flor is thicker. This is a spring 2012 bottling of I Think with 4 ½ years average age in the La Guita solera. It is a wine that demonstrates really well how much character is lost through stabilisation. For fun, try it alongside a glass of normal La Guita, and you’ll see the difference. This was the second release and was only exported to the UK, USA and Australia, each of which received about a third of this bottling of around 5,000 half bottles.

Price

Around £ 10.00 from Drinkmonger Edinburgh. UK distributor is Alliance Wine

Manzanilla en Rama I Think 15%, Equipo Navazos, saca de Octubre 2010 (Retaste)

Appearance

Quite deep, almost Amontillado colour with slight tones of unpolished brass, legs

Nose

Powerful saline flor, quite bitter with hints of dry scrub and a distinct oxidative note which merges with savoury hints of autolysis, and a slight nutty almost oily note to offer amazing complexity. Deep, full and evolved.

Palate

Intense, round, rich and complex starting with that oxidative note then clean and fine with the flor coming through along with the nutty oxidative note. There is a fascinating interplay between intensity and mellowness in this superb wine. It is not as racy as a more recently bottled wine but so many facets have harmonised with extra bottle age.

Comments

It was fantastic to taste this wine again with three years more bottle age. For its 4 ½ years of average solera age it is amazing. So many labels of Finos and Manzanillas, especially en rama bottlings, state that they should be consumed as soon as possible for maximum freshness, but this wine shows that they can and do improve, evolve, develop, even change in bottle. What is lost in freshness is gained in mellow complexity and richness, especially with en rama bottlings which have less taken out. After 56 months in bottle this wine which comes from La Guita has lost nothing and gained much, which demonstrates just how well Finos and Manzanillas can age in bottle – in proper conditions.

Price

About £ 11.00 per half bottle from Drinkmonger Edinburgh

Manzanilla en Rama I Think 15%, Equipo Navazos, saca de Octubre 2014

Appearance

Pale brassy gold with light legs.

Nose

Full and saline: beach, seaweed, very maritime with plenty of flor bitterness and amazing breadth. Super fresh yet serious with slight savoury autolytic notes, olive brine and a very slight hint of oxidation in the background. This could only be quality Manzanilla for its intense yeast and seaside character.

Palate

Delightfully tangy and quite intensely flavoured with terrific salinity, dry bitterness, hints of autolysis and that trace of oxidation making it very complex and yet full of life. This is a lovely wine – proper Manzanilla - bottled with minimum filtration so all its solera character is retained. It has a really long and intense flor powered finish which develops complexity even as it fades.

Comments

Aged about 4 ½ years in the La Guita solera and 8 months in bottle, this is from a lot of just over 5,000 half bottles, and is the current release. The wine is bottled from time to time, more on an ad hoc basis than as a regular bottling, but always either in spring or autumn when the flor is thickest. It is delicious now but would reward keeping.

Price

About £ 11.00 per half bottle at Drinkmonger Edinburgh

La Bota de Palo Cortado Sanlucar No. 52 18%, Equipo Navazos

Appearance

Pale amber with traces of copper, legs.

Nose

Big with lots of soft oxidative notes, quince, quite savoury, trace Marmite, quite yeasty and savoury yet some Amontillado notes such as that implied sweet nuttiness - hazelnut, almond and walnut, clean, fine and very complex for such a young wine,  it can't hide its youth but that gives added character - and versatility.

Palate

Really quite tangy, dry, quite light and very fresh, some delightful slightly sweet caramel and walnut notes, no wood, amazingly "grown up" for its youth, nutty oxidative notes balance beautifully with the freshness and there is the slightest hint of bitterness and still that tang showing Sanlucar origins at the finish which is pretty long and very clean.

Comments 

This seriously interesting wine was made from Palomino grapes grown in the Pago Miraflores near Sanlucar in 2010. The must was fermented in steel tanks at bodegas La Guita, where it had only a little interaction with flor, so this is really more of an oxidative wine. It was fortified to 17.5% then aged in 600 litre Sherry butts and 225 litre Bordeaux "barriques" filled almost to the brim to avoid excessive oxidation. The contents of 6 botas cañon (butts sitting on the ground) were selected, these having been seasoned with old Amontillado, giving more complexity and depth. Despite the short interaction with flor, the wine still has noticeable minerality as it comes from coastal vineyards. It was bottled in April 2014 at a modest 18% vol.

This is a ground-breaking wine. Probably the youngest Palo Cortado ever, pretty well from the start, and a vintage wine to boot. Yet technically it satisfies all the legal requisites and is delicious as well- and perhaps more food friendly than the usual heavier, older style of PC. We have mainly Eduardo Ojeda's experience and sense of adventure to thank for this gem.

Price

Around £36 in the UK (as always worth every penny), importers Alliance Wine

16.1.14 Tio pepe Roundabout; Mayor Visits La Guita; State of Old Diez Merito Bodega

The competition to choose which Tio Pepe should stand on the Tio Pepe roundabout in Jerez is finally over. The winner is the Tio Pepe designed by sculptor Chiqui Diaz, chosen by over 6,000 people from all over the world – but mainly Spain - who voted for the four finalists online on the Tio Pepe facebook page. Soon, the new Tio Pepe will preside over the Avenida Tio Pepe.  Great marketing, eh?!  Anyway, the roundabout will look quite like this:

The Mayor of Sanlucar, Victor Mora, visited the bodegas of La Guita in the Calle Misericordia today to inspect renovation and improvement works which have just been finished. Responding to an invitation from the president of owners Grupo Estevez, the mayor toured the bodega in the old quarter of Sanlucar and saw the repair work to the façade as well as interior improvements.

In this historic building from the XVI century there was once the most important hospital in Sanlucar, known as the Hospital de la Santa Misericordia, or later as the Hospital de San Juan de Dios. From 1867-8 the building was converted to bodega use, and has been a bodega ever since. Interestingly, the old doorway of San Juan de Dios is still preserved.

The Andalucia Party has asked that the local government restore the old School of Industrial Relations building (formerly the Diez Merito bodegas, right opposite the railway station) to avoid further deterioration, and give it a cultural and social use, if the Junta de Andalucia’s projected health centre doesn’t materialise. The building is now presenting a danger to children and is infested with rats. The party has asked the council to pressurise the health service to do what it has promised to do many times, and make it into an extra-hospital emergency centre for the use of citizens of Jerez.

3.12.13 New Wine Celebrated in Sanlucar

Over 50 local hotel, restaurant and bar owners assembled at bodegas La Guita in Sanlucar recently to celebrate the end of the fermentation. The new wines will now begin to clarify themselves now that the cold weather has arrived, and a lot of “mosto” is available in bars taking part in the Ruta del Mosto. The tasting at La Guita was followed by the traditional lunch. The celebration of the must takes place around St Andrew’s day all over the region.

"Hosteleros" at La Guita (+Jerez)