31.5.18 Bodegas Portales Pérez Launch Manzanilla Pasada

At last the eagerly awaited Manzanilla Pasada en rama Los Caireles is on sale. It is made by carefully selecting wine from a few butts with over 10 years under flor. The Manzanilla solera in Calle Carmen Viejo is quite small with just 300 butts, but some of the best wine was kept aside and aged statically, and so only 700 bottles have been released and they will be much sought after. This small, charming family-owned bodega in Sanlucar, which goes back five generations, punches well above its weight and all their products are of high quality.

Bodegas: Portales Pérez SL

Now in its fifth generation, the Portales family firm has always been in the wine business but only more recently, in 1997, did Maria José  Portales realise her dream by starting to commercialise their wines. Before that they were simply producers of wine which they supplied to other bodegas, but decided to market their own brand: Manzanilla Los Caireles, launched in 2002. A cairel is a little charm to decorate riding clothes or the reins of the horses Sanlúcar is so famous for. Maria Jose's niece Pilar is the oenologist while her nephew José  takes care of the despacho and the commercial side of things.

They have two bodegas, San Antonio, constructed in 1821 which houses the Amontillado, Oloroso and PX and the other is a wonderful casa-bodega built in the XVI century in Calle Carmen Viejo. It was once the house of a cargador de Indias, a merchant who sold goods to the American colonies. This beautiful old building is a conservation award-winning house with a central patio and an adjacent low-roofed bodega which is incredibly atmospheric.

There is a slight baroque air about it and it is right on the edge of the lower and upper areas of Sanlúcar with a great damp atmosphere in the bodega that the flor loves. This is the Manzanilla bodega containing over 300 butts. Everything is done the artisan way and they use the minimum of treatment so the Manzanilla can be as natural as possible. The wines have a real flavour of Sanlúcar.

The wines are:

The los Caireles range: Manzanilla(@4.5 years), Manzanilla Pasada (7-8 years) , Amontillado, Oloroso, Cream

Addresses:

C/San Francisco,23 corner C/San Antonio, 11540 Sanlúcar de Barrameda, Cádiz

C/Carmen Viejo, 30 (thecasa-bodega)

Telephone: 686 294 711

Web: no website. bodegascaireles@gmail.com

Vists: Yes (in Spanish) but need to be arranged.There is a shop at Calle San Francisco.