Vino Blanco La Riva 2016 13.5%, M Ant. De La Riva

Appearance
Mid strawy brassy gold with golden highlights.
Nose
The first thing you notice is seriousness: depth and a good degree of ripeness; most Palomino table wines are 12% and lack this depth and intensity. It reminded me slightly of a fine Burgundy, Meursault possibly - it certainly has that level of class, and faint oxidative nuttiness. There are as many fruit notes as those of flor with very ripe/stewed apple and quince balancing the bitter ones of the flor. It has a slight orchard air about it with some wild herbs growing nearby, and also a distinct nod to Fino. It is very complex, intense and beautiful.
Palate
This is way more complex and concentrated than any white table wine I have come across so far in Cádiz. It has a lovely chalky grapeskin texture and a gentle tension between that lovely ripe fruit and just a little bitter flor edge. It is clean with reasonably low acidity and lingers for ages. No new French oak barrels necessary for complexity here, just outstanding grapes and winemaking - the way it was done in the past. It makes you realise how much has been lost, and how important Ramiro's and Willy's work is in recuperating it. This wine is utterly superb.
Comments

This stunning wine was made by Ramiro Ibáñez and Willy Pérez for their new brand, M Antonio de la Riva, for which they bought the rights. The original firm was famed for quality and they want to maintain that, and have got off to a great start with Oloroso and Moscatel (just 90 half bottles) Viejisimos and an outstanding Fino. This white wine is made from old Palomino 84 vines grown in the Viña El Notario, located in the northern part of the Viña El Majuelo, owned by Fundador, in the Macharnudo Alto. It is well inland with a warmer climate but has a decent altitude of some 115 metres and fantastic albariza soil composed of tosca cerrada and barajuela. The grapes were harvested by hand in mid September at a very low yield of about half the normal, and sunned for 8 hours, as was the original La Riva practice, which increased the must weight by 1.2 degrees. The grapes were very lightly pressed for maximum quality and the wine was fermented in butt at ambient temperature using flor yeast, and remained in the butt under the flor for 10 months before only 400 bottles were filled in October 2017 en rama and under a fine quality 2 inch driven cork. If you manage to get hold of a bottle, don't over chill it.

Price
35.50 (and worth every centimo) Guerrita

La Riva Fino 15%, M Antonio de la Riva

Appearance
Bright full light amber-straw with brassy-golden glints, it looks serious right from the very start.
Nose

Forthcoming, intense and complex, it is very serious. There are all sorts of nuances like straw, esparto grass, butter, toasted almonds and dried herbs, distinct oxidative notes and cabezuela. There is some bitter flor but it is balanced beautifully by those oxidative notes which give the wine its seriousness and body. While it is still very much a Fino it is heading towards Fino-Amontillado with all the extra complexity that implies. It is old fashioned, but how could that style have been lost? It is wonderful.

Palate

Full, generous and bursting with mouth-coating flavour, low acidity (no added tartaric acid probably) and all the better for it - it shouldn't be necessary. This is real Sherry, of the classic Jerez style, fuller bodied, more oxidative, textured and expressive. Sadly there are very few like this nowadays. It is totally natural, made by letting nature do what it does best. It has amazing length, just going on and on, lovely!

Comments

This outstanding Fino was bottled en rama in October 2017 but released more recently once the Consejo paperwork was in order. It is one of just 1,500 bottles. The grapes came from the 3.5 hectare Viña Campanilla on brownish-grey soil over tosca cerrada albariza in the pago Balbaina Alta around 10 kilometres from the sea at 65 metres above sea level. The solera is tiny, consisting of just 5 butts; one criadera and one solera. Here the wine ages under flor for a good 10 years and there is one annual saca. Very much the Jerez style of the past, 50 years ago and more. The wine scored 92 Parker points, but I am very surprised it didn't score more, it is quite superb. De La Riva is the joint project of Willy Pérez and Ramiro Ibáñez who bought the prestigious brand name from Beam Global and set out to find and produce wines of at least that standard. I am old enough to remember one or two of the originals, and these are better. Anyway, presentation is of a high standard and is virtually identical to the original and it is sealed with a proper 2 inch driven cork of fine quality, which would help it age well for a good few years in bottle...

Price
26,50 Licores Corredera

Bodegas: M Antonio De la Riva SL

M Antonio De la Riva SA is a highly respected but long disappeared Sherry Brand which has been given a new lease of life, revived by local superstar oenologists Willy Pérez and Ramiro Ibáñez, who have bought the rights from Beam Global who had acquired them in 2017 along with the purchase of Domecq from Pernod Ricard. Domecq had acquired De La Riva in the early 1970s, and also Agustín Blázquez, quite possibly to boost the firm’s value in an effort to avoid takeover by Rumasa.

This new incarnation of the company was registered in 2017 as Bodegas De La Riva SL. Willy and Ramiro are making wines from grapes grown in the historic pagos like Macharnudo and Balbaina which supplied the original La Riva brands like Fino Tres Palmas, Viña Sabel and Fino La Riva. Their new Fino is sourced from the Balbaína Alta. Wines will be made in the old fashioned way and sold under this famous brand name, with labels similar to the originals. 

In the meantime they are selling a stunning white table wine made from grapes bought in from the El Notario plot in the Majuelo vineyard in the pago Macharnudo (400 bottles) and tiny quantities of fabulous old wines they have come across: Moscatel Viejísimo Loma Baja (98 RP) the original Moscatel Pico Plata Añejo made by Florido Hermanos and saved from the sale of the bodega to Domecq in the 1970s, and is extremely old (over 80 years) and amazingly concentrated and thus only available in 120 half bottles, which is all the wine there was. Francisco Yuste now owns and markets the brand but not the original wine. Oloroso Viejísimo Balbaina Baja (96 RP), a quite outstandingly fragrant and concentrated old wine, again available only in half bottles, with a first saca of 1,300. This wine comes from a selection from twelve butts from a now lost Cuvillo solera which were used as payment, during the crisis of the 1980s, to a Jerez architect who had kept them at his home for 40 years without refreshing them, concentrating the wine considerably.and a quite outstanding Fino Balbaina Alta  (92 RP) with a few hours of sunning and 10 years of solera ageing (1,500 bottles). These are all stupendous wines, but available in painfully limited quantities.

For information on the original firm, see the post M Antonio de la Riva SA