Brandy Uno en Mil Solera Gran Reserva Single Cask 16/1000 40%, Romate

Appearance

Antique polished mahogany fading to amber with old gold to copper highlights.

Nose

Good fresh clean spirit whose aromas are not totally dominated by Sherry and which can speak for itself, though there is some there naturally, and quite possibly Amontillado rather than  Oloroso. It doesn´t appear to have been sweetened or if so only very sightly as there is a faint aroma of brown sugar there along with a hint of dried spices like cinnamon. This is very subtle, elegant and classy.

Palate

Remarkably harmonious, fairly light and elegant all the way through with some traces of sweetness, dried fruits and Sherry, but all very subtle, adding to - rather than dominating - a good spirit. It is very clean with distant hints of spice, cacao, tobacco and wood, and had a dry finish with considerable length leaving all sorts of complex nuances in its wake.

Comments

Sánchez Romate have long been one of the leading brandy producers in Jerez since they established the Cardenal Mendoza solera in 1888, and for which they have 1,000 numbered butts of holandas stored in their Barreras bodega. The spirit is distilled from wine made from Airén grapes, slowly and at low strength for maximum quality and flavour, and after at least 12 years of ageing, five butts are selected by the firm´s master distiller, Ricardo Real and oenologist Reyes Gómez from those individual butts which have developed the most interesting aroma and flavour profiles. These will then be bottled as one-offs, or "single oak casks" each one of which of course being unique from the others and producing about 1,000 bottles from each butt at 40%/vol. Theoretically then, every time you buy a bottle of this brandy it will be from a different cask and therefore a new experience.

Price

28.50, Licores Corredera

Oloroso 18%, Bodegas Sánchez Romate

Appearance

Bright full mahogany fading to amber with copper highlights.

Nose

Quite rich and full and very Oloroso with an open character with oxidative notes to the fore naturally, and its comparative youth allows one to identify some of Oloroso´s characteristic notes which include traces of butter, caramel, apple and even Marmite. It is beautifully rounded with real character.

Palate

Rich, round and medium to full, still with the faintest apple notes and lots of glycerine and caramel and hints of dried fruits which give an impression of sweetness, but it is actually dry with an attractive fairly dry texture and yet has a lighter finish but not lacking in length.

Comments

Like all products from this bodega, founded nearly a quarter of a millennium ago, this Oloroso is of very good quality and value for money. It comes from a very old solera and is bottled at over 5 years of age while the wine in the solera goes on to feed Don José and Old and Plus. The presentation is adventurous for Sherry and is designed to appeal to younger people and convince them what a good wine Sherry is. Let us hope the wine and the presentation can do the job successfully.

Price

5.70, Licores Corredera

Amontillado 17%, Bodegas Sánchez Romate

Appearance

Light mahogany fading to amber with coppery highlights.

Nose

Forthcoming and generous with lots of almonds and hazelnuts, hints of oak and toasted bread, appley caramelly oxidation and a faint raisin note giving a very light trace of sweetness. Clean soft and smooth, it is quite young and not particularly complex but certainly doesn´t lack character or quality.

Palate

Medium in weight and basically dry but with a slight hint of sweetness which is more than just glycerine since there is that trace of PX which makes it beautifully rounded and smooth. It is not medium but rather just off-dry and has a long dry nutty finish.

Comments

This is a charming and easy-drinking every day Amontillado from the bodega´s standard range, with approximately 3 years crianza biológica followed by a second fortification and a further 5 years plus of oxidative ageing. It is comparatively young but none the worse for that. It was bottled a year ago and would make the perfect wine to introduce someone to the delights of Amontillado - and is a steal at the price.

Price

5.95, Licores Corredera

Fino Romate 15%, Bodegas Sánchez Romate

Appearance
Bright pale silvery gold with white gold highlights.
Nose

Very fresh, zesty and yeasty with hints of minerality and a gentle flor bitterness. It is fairly young making it zippy, with traces of fresh herbs in the background like camomile and even a faint trace of  lemon peel. Most attractive.

Palate

Light and super fresh with perfect balance, it is dry, clean and refreshing with faint traces of apple, apricot and almond with that slightly more serious flor character just behind. It is none the worse for its youth, in fact that is most of its appeal, and it has very good length.

Comments

For 2018 Romate decided to make their standard Sherry range available in a new presentation designed to look more like that of table wines. The move to make the wines less formal-looking has seen them - like the “Unusual Sherries” range which were new wines - being filled into Burgundy bottles in the hope that they will be seen as wines for drinking with food. They have also appointed a new and more dynamic distributor. This then is a Fino with over three years solera age and is light, fresh and perfect with food - but dangerously moreish...

Price
6.99 El Corte Inglés

Pedro Ximénez Duquesa 18%, Sánchez Romate

Appearance

Almost completely opaque blacky walnut brown fading to intense amber at the rim, viscous.

Nose

Very fruity, mainly dried fruit of course, with raisins, prunes, dates and figs to the fore along with toffee, carob and a slight toasted note from the oak. There are traces of coffee and cinnamon too.

Palate

Full on the palate with lots of texture and those delicious dried fruit flavours. It is unctuously sweet with a hint of honey yet the oak and coffee notes and a perfect touch of very slightly citric acidity provide an element of balance. Fantastic length.

Comments

This excellent PX is, at some 8-10 years old, the younger version of the superb 15+ year old PX Cardenal Cisneros. Despite its comparative youth it has considerable class and density and is good enough to feature in the firm's Reservas Especiales range and scored 90 from the Guía Peñín and 91 from Robert Parker.

Price

14.00 ex bodega

Brandy Uno en Mil Solera Gran Reserva 40%, Sánchez Romate

Appearance

Bright light mahogany with gold flecked amber highlights, legs.

Nose

Forthcoming and refined with lots of toasted hazelnuts and almond and only faint notes of toasty American oak balanced by a slight trace of sweetness giving the impression of a 40% Amontillado. There is a  slight dried apricot or raisin note and traces of straw and cabinet maker's workshop, all beautifully integrated.

Palate

Fresh and clean with gentle clove and orange notes and a hint of exotic wood. The nuttiness is still there and the overall impression is one of elegant restraint, rather than the heavier Oloroso or PX aged style, yet it is intensely nuanced and beautifully balanced with charm and length. Very Good.

Comments

By the norms of Brandy de Jerez this one is unusual - in the best possible way. At Romate's Bodega de Barreras they have 1,000 butts of ageing holandas (the finest spirit, slowly distilled in alquitaras or pot stills). Rather than go through a solera, this brandy is the contents of a single numbered butt selected by the firm's spirits expert, Ricardo Real, for its unique and distinguished character. It follows that the brandy from each selected butt will be slightly different, as is the case with single cask whiskies, so there is a whole new brandy to look forward to every now and then. Each bottle carries the number of that butt which may have been seasoned with either Fino or Amontillado. This was Amontillado butt 186 and it quite superb, highly complex world class brandy.

Price

29.95 from Licoreria La Latina, Fuengirola

Brandy Cardenal Mendoza Solera Gran Reserva 40%, Sánchez Romate

Appearance

Deep walnut brown fading to amber with bright copper highlights, slow legs.

Nose

Powerful and intense with distinct notes of wood, Oloroso and Pedro Ximénez, but a subtle and complex combination of them which could only come from age. There is an attractive nuttiness and very slight traces of cinnamon, clove and orange balanced by a hint of caramel sweetness. This is a serious brandy.

Palate

Generous and nicely balanced between tanginess and sweetness. There are some toasted notes like flan (créme caramel) and even a trace of coffee along with the more phenolic wood and spice notes which give depth, structure and focus, and which balance out that hint of sweetness providing length.

Comments

In 1887 the Sánchez Romate family began producing brandy for personal use, but as word got out about its quality they decided to put it on the market. This naturally required dramatically increasing the size of the solera. The brandy is produced from Airén grapes and is blended from 100% holandas, spirits distilled in alquitaras, or pot stills. Like all the best ones, it is aged using the "mixto" system, whereby the young spirit is aged statically in 250 litre barrels for three years to lose some of its strength and to age it more quickly before it enters the solera, which has eight criaderas. In all there are over 3,500 butts in the solera system.The butts themselves have been seasoned with PX and Oloroso, and the final product has an average age of 15 years. This solera also feeds the Carta Real solera and it in turn feeds the Non Plus Ultra solera. The brandy is named after Pedro Mendoza, a XV century Cardinal who was a bit of a character, and  among other things was a great promoter of Columbus' voyage to the Americas.

Price

21 euros, widely available in good shops

Pale Cream Mirame Cuando Te Hablo 17%, Sánchez Romate

Appearance

Pale bright golden straw with golden highlights, legs.

Nose

The first thing you notice is Moscatel with a background trace of bitterness from the Fino used as a base wine, but there are sufficient traces of mandarin and flowers to over-ride those flor notes

Palate

Not over sweet, perhaps medium-sweet and not at all cloying. It has a very gentle tang of acidity to balance and lots of Moscatel fruit with a slightly dry edge. 

Comments

Pale Cream is basically sweetened Fino or Manzanilla. Croft were the first with the idea in the early 1970s and they used charcoal filtered rectified concentrated must (RCM) to sweeten the Fino. The result was a sweeter Sherry which looked dry (pale) and was terribly fashionable at the time of Martini/Cinzano Bianco and the "bright lights taste". While it achieved incredible sales success thanks to multinational marketing, it has to be said that it wasn't really all that good compared to other styles of Sherry. Reyes Gómez, oenologist at Sánchez Romate has solved the problem by using light young Moscatel instead, and blending it with Romate Fino from the Pago Añina giving the wine a bit more character. Serve really cold.

Price
7.60 euros from Licores Corredera

Amontillado Olvidado 1/5 20%, Sánchez Romate

Appearance

Pure amber with old gold highlights and a faint trace of green at the rim, legs.

Nose

Aromatic and refined with lots of toasted almonds and hazelnuts and a gentle implicit sweetness balancing with hints of oak and traces of cinnamon. Very clean and elegant, this is obviously very old yet it has a trace of crispness from the volatile acidity which makes it fresh, and there's an almost complete absence of austerity. Everything is in perfect harmony.

Palate

Crispness and a gentle grip from the wood tannin are balanced by just enough glycerol to make it fresh, intense nuttiness, extremely elegant with a very long clean finish. Tangy and delicious, this is a classic Amontillado, perfectly weighted and balanced.

Comments

"Olvidado" means forgotten, and this rare wine comes from 5 toneles (double-sized butts of 1,000 litres) which are effectively "botas no" connected with the old Amontillado solera, and have not been refreshed for some 25 years, allowing the wine to develop much further. The result is a fabulous old Amontillado which would surely qualify as VORS if the bodega believed in the system. It was hand bottled en rama in October 2015, and another saca is not foreseen for at least two years, unfortunately.

Price

Around 18 euros per half bottle, but almost unobtainable except from the UK Wine Society £16