Manzanilla Predilecta 15%, Bodegas Carbajo Ruiz

Appearance

Bright pale lemony gold with golden highlights.

Nose

Quite floral with notes of meadow flowers and camomile along with saline marine notes and  nicely balanced flor. There are slight fruit notes as well with hints of apple and apricot. It is all nicely balanced, fresh and open.

Palate

A yeasty flor start opens out allowing the fruity floral character to come out but the flor is there throughout. It is very dry and light with average acidity and an attractive minerality and really quite complex for its age and has very good length with a lovely bitter flor twist at the end.

Comments

This attractive Manzanilla is made from grapes grown in the firm's own vineyards, all on Jerez Superior albarizas, while the bodega is located in the Barrio Alto of Sanlúcar. Despite being in business since the dawn of the XX century, the firm is not particularly well known outside Sanlúcar and its wines are not seen around very often. That in no way implies that their quality is inferior however. This Manzanilla is aged for an average of three years and is at that attractive stage where there are still traces of fruit to balance the flor.

Price

6.50 euros, De Albariza

 

Bodegas: Viñedos y Bodegas Carbajo Ruiz SL

The origins of this Company in Sanlúcar go back to the beginning of the XIX century when Pio Gutiérrez and his wife Gregoria de los Ríos left their native Santander for Sanlúcar. There they bought a bodega and its soleras as well as vineyard. They had three daughters, María, Manuela and Mercedes, and it was the latter who married Heliodoro Carbajo Gallego from Zamora and set up in business as a grocer, but soon moving into thewine business. They added old family soleras such as those of María Gutiérrez de los Rios who was married to Antonio López de Rábago, also a bodeguero, and bought other old soleras from the trade in Sanlúcar.

Together, Mercedes and Heliodoro built up the family business which would become the one which exists today. Their son, Rafael Carbajo Gutiérrez, was born in Sanlúcar and it was he who did much to modernise the business. He married Josefa Ruiz Acosta, also born in Sanlúcar. After the death of Rafael in 1985, Josefa, decided to continue with the business together with her two sons, Rafael Ángel and José Miguel Carbajo Ruiz, who still run the bodega today.

Carbajo Ruíz have three bodegas: Doña Manuela, the oldest, dating from 1902, Nuestra Señora de la Caridad, and Bodega La Solera, built in 1975 and with 4000 square metres, not to mention the Jerez Superior vineyards. The range of wines consists of:

Manzanilla Predilecta (over 3 years old)

Pale Cream Predilecta (interestingly sweetened with Moscatel)

Amontillado Mítico (10 years old)

Medium Mítico

Oloroso Distinguido (aged 10 years)

Cream Imperial (10 years old)

Moscatel de pasas Bondadoso

PX Bondadoso (5 years old)