Brandy Cien Lustros Solera Gran Reserva 40%, M Gil Luque

Appearance
Polished mahogany fading to amber with coppery highlights.
Nose
Very attractive; full, rich and forthcoming, fragrant and elegant. There are traces of dried fruit and Oloroso, vanilla, caramel, dates, orange peel, and furniture polish, all beautifully and subtly melded together so they are hard to separate out, and there is no astringent oak. It smells like holandas matured in Oloroso butts which over time have produced this lovely bouquet.
Palate
Plenty of flavour here with vanilla and caramel to the fore backed up by Oloroso and still no astringent wood, though the finish is dry. It is at once intense and refined with a delicate sweetness which seems natural, full at the start then opening out generously and lingering almost eternally.
Comments

A lustro is a period of five years, so I imagine a hundred of them implies great age, taking one back to the dawn of brandy and hopefully giving one the inspiration to buy it. This brandy is by no means that old obviously, but it has a respectable minimum 20 years solera age. It used to belong to Manuel Gil Luque who had, in 1912 bought out the old Jerez firm of Fernando Carrasco Sagastizabal. He in turn was bought out by La Guita in 1984, and they were bought out by current owner Grupo Estévez in 2007. So it is an old solera. Confusingly however, the presentation of this brandy is remarkably similar, apart from a bit of string round the neck -and the wording of course - to that of the Marqués del Real Tesoro SGR which is different. Also there used to be another brandy of the same name, from the now disappeared Bodegas Sánchez de Alva. Whatever. This is a lovely brandy.

Price

36.50, Licores Corredera

Palo Cortado Bota Punta No.6 21%, Equipo Navazos

Appearance
Deep limpid amber with slight reddy hue (almost like very old colheita Port) fading through pale yellow to a trace of green on the rim. Legs.
Nose
Fresh and aromatic with lots of toasted almonds and a delightful raisins in caramel sweetness, then a salty, slightly bitter tang of flor and a trace of wood dry things out a bit. Hints of pastry with almond cream and tangy raisin with a faint whiff of cinnamon, complex, interesting and very elegant.
Palate
Quite light but full of flavour, tangy, almost crisp with more phenolic notes of wood and walnut, even a certain earthy bitterness which balance with that slight implied sweetness. While the nose is very Amontillado, the palate is more oloroso in style, which is the hallmark of good Palo Cortado. This is a really characterful wine, very long and quite superb.
Comments
It comes from a tiny old solera of 7 butts originally established by Fernando Carrasco Sagastizabal in his old bodegas at Rincon Malillo and Cordobeses, which was bought by M Gil Luque, owned by La Guita, in 1995. It was then moved to their bodega complex at Vina El Telegrafo. In 2007, La Guita including Gil Luque was taken over by Grupo Estevez, and the solera was moved again to their modern facilities. Just before this happened, and before any changes that might happen to the wine, Equipo Navazos managed to bottle 300 half bottles from the Bota Punta, or end butt, the one containing the best wine of all. Luque had been using the old Carrasco Sagastizabal soleras for their flagship range De Bandera. This wine, then, is unique, though Equipo Navazos may well look at the solera again once  it has settled down.
Price
I paid around 30 euros for the half bottle in Spain, but I doubt it will still be obtainable. Try winesearcher.

PX Leyenda 18%, M Gil Luque

Appearance
Deep blacky burnt umber through mahogany to yellow at rim, pronounced legs.
Nose
Deep and fairly intense aromas of pasas, toffee, caramel, miel de cana (cane honey), and dried figs,  a hint of alcohol there too. Still quite young, but very good quality.
Palate
Very fruity: liquid pasas and dried figs, viscous, unctuous and intensely flavoured with toffee predominating and a slight kick from that alcohol, quite a serious wine.
Comments
Considering this wine is only around 5 years old, it is quite intense and strong, which covers the slight lack of complexity due to its youth. It is very good, though, with considerable length.
Price
£ 8.95 per half bottle from Drinkmonger, Edinburgh Agents Vinoceros

Bodegas: M Gil Luque

The origins of this firm date to the end of the XIX century, but it took its current name after it was bought by Manuel Gil Luque in 1912. Hijos de Rainera Perez Marin, famous for their Manzanilla La Guita, bought Gil Luque in 1984. A number of small and very old soleras from Bodegas Fernando Carrasco Sagastizabal in C/ Rincon Malillo and C/Cordobeses were bought by M Gil Luque in 1995 and moved in 1998 along with their brandy, vinegar and other wines, to the new Gil Luque facilities in Viña El Telegrafo on the road to Lebrija, in Carrascal.  The bodega complex, containing 2,100 butts, was surrounded by 55 hectares of albariza vineyard, and the wine was made at bodega Pago de Miraflores and bottled at Pago Sanlucar Viejo, the 2 bodegas being now owned by La Guita. The old Carrasco Sagastizabal wines were sold under the De Bandera label.

In January 2007 Hijos de Rainera Perez Marin was itself bought out, by Grupo Estevez for 36 million euros.  Gil Luque’s De Bandera soleras were moved again, this time to a lovely bodega in El Puerto de Santa Maria which once belonged to Cuvillo. What with the various acquisitions made by Estevez, and the number of brands which that entailed, they have put the De Bandera wines on the back burner for the moment, but are looking after them. Let us hope they will be available once again! Meanwhile, the Leyenda range can be found occasionally.

Ranges:

De Bandera VORS : PX, Moscatel, Oloroso, Amontillado, Palo Cortado  These had a tiny output - only 600 botts of each per year

{Equipo Navazos bottled some De Bandera Palo Cortado as Bota Punta No 6 Palo Cortado, Saca Abril 2007}

Luque Classic: Sherries and Brandy (solera 1928)

Leyenda:  Oro Cream (12 years old & 70% olo 30% PX), Amontillado, Oloroso, Cream, PX

There used also to be a more commercial range called Deportivo

Fino Tio Toto 15%, M Gil Luque

Appearance
Pale strawy gold, slight legs.
Nose
Quite full, broad and yeasty, some waxy bitterness, very slightly stalky, a decent nose if not very complex.
Palate
Fairly big,very slightly clumsy, hints of fruit, acidity and even a trace of tannin, yet that bitterness and a hint of yeastiness are there too. Young and made to a price, but pretty sound.
Comments
M Gil Luque, a small but good Jerez bodega was taken over by Herederos de R Perez Marin, makers of La Guita Manzanilla, and the latter were subsequently taken over by Grupo Estevez, who now produce this wine. The commercial brand Tio Toto is associated with Valdespino, which also belongs to Grupo Etevez, but it seems as if it has been divested to the no longer extant M Gil Luque, which is now more of an inexpensive but decent supermarket brand. On the label it states that the wine is produced and bottled by JESA (Jose Estevez SA), and gives the same postcode as the Real Tesoro/Valdespino complex. Anyway Tio Toto consists of a Fino, Manzanilla, Amontillado, Oloroso and PX. There are still some really good M Gil Luque wines floating about, though.
Price
I bought this from my chums at Lupe Pinto Deli in Edinburgh for £ 10. 50. Moreno Wines may be the importers of this, but Liberty wines also import Valdespino.

Bodegas: Grupo Estevez

The story of this successful Bodega began in 1809 when Don Jose Lena Rendon set up as a dealer in Sherry wines. He was joined at some point by Don Inigo Ruiz de Villegas y Sanchez de Tagle. Bodegas were constructed in Jerez at No. 8 Calle Lechuga.  By the 1870s the firm had important business in Northern Europe and South America, as well as offices in London run by Antonio Rodrigo Ruiz. In 1894 the principal shareholder, Felix Ruiz y Ruiz a descendant of Don Inigo, changed the company name to Felix Ruiz y Ruiz SA. The name was changed a few times: AR Ruiz Hermanos, J Ruiz y Cia.

Rumasa's first bodega purchase was AR Ruiz Hnos. with its 10,000 butts in 1963, and in 1974 Ruiz was bought by Jose Estevez SA. Jose Estevez de los Reyes was a real entrepreneur, a Jerezano who from childhood was always on the lookout for business opportunities. Among many other things, he was involved in construction, a bottle factory, he worked in the production department at Domecq, studied geology and owned a silica sand mining company at Arcos, the sale of which (for 12,000 million pesetas!) gave him the money to invest in the wine business. He died in 2005 and his son Jose Ramon now runs the business.

 In 1982 he bought a significant holding in the bodega Marques del Real Tesoro, completing the purchase in 1989, merging the companies, for which he spent a fortune building a new bodega complex. 1993 saw the purchase of the ex Harveys fino brand Tio Mateo, along with its soleras, and expansion didn't stop there. Valdespino was purchased in 2002, and in 2007 the group bought Hijos de Rainera Perez Marin,owner of the best selling Manzanilla, La Guita, and Bodegas M Gil Luque.

Grupo Estevez is more dynamic than many Sherry firms, and one of the few with facilities in all three of the main Sherry towns, turning over 103 million Euros and employing 200 staff. The company recently bought 400 hectares more vineyard (ex Domecq) from Beam Global, a very canny move, giving the firm almost 800 in total. The firm is also keen to use fortification spirit made from Palomino in Jerez rather than from Airen in la Mancha, and is now sending Jerez mosto to Tomelloso for distillation and using it in an experimental solera set up in 2015. They are also trying to raise interest in the establishment of a distillery in Jerez.

The bodegas also house an art gallery, a carriage museum and a stud. More recently the firm has moved into spirits, and supplies no less than 48 wine and spirit products to the Mercadona supermarket which has 1500 branches in Spain. The two firms have worked very well together and prospered.

Contact

Address: Carretera Nacional IV - km 640, CP 11408, Jerez de la Frontera, Cadiz

Tel: (+34)  956 321 004

Web: www.grupoestevez.es