Ojo de Gallo 2016 12%, Grupo Estévez

Appearance

Pale bright strawy gold with golden highlights.

Nose

Fresh, clean and very natural, honest, with traces of apples and minerals, it smells young, fresh, leafy and vital with a slight note of Fino, but it is fruitier and lighter.

Palate

Dry, clean, lean and minerally, it has a decent acidity and a slightly chalky feel and a certain crunchy character, and all these characteristics relate to the quality of the vineyard. It is light yet has lots of style and is brilliant with food. I can't wait to see what bottle age does to it.

Comments

This delicious wine is made from 100% Palomino grapes hand picked from 25 + year old organically grown vines in the company's 145 hectares in Macharnudo Alto, the best bit of the best pago in Jerez. (They own 256 hectares in the Pago Macharnudo as a whole). The wine is fermented in stainless steel using selected local yeasts and rested at low temperature for six months on its lees before bottling. After the successful sales and critical acclaim of the first release, the 2015, the 2016 is selling fast. This is one of the best examples around of a wine which faithfully reflects the character of the vineyard in which it was born, and shows just how important vineyards are. Grupo Estévez know this - they are the  biggest vineyard owner of all the bodegas with 800 hectares. Ojo de Gallo (Eye of the Cockerel) is the name of the parcel of vines the wine comes from.

Price

7.60 euros, Licores Corredera

29.5.17 New Launches from Grupo Estévez

The superb Valdespino Fino Inocente, from a single vineyard and fermented in butt, is now available in a limited edition of 600 numbered magnums. This reflects a bit of a trend in the Sherry world and it is a very welcome one, as one now has the opportunity to lay down wines in magnums, the ideal size for extended bottle ageing, for five years or even much more. Inocente is already bottled at ten years old, but could easily develop considerably more complexity. The spring 2017 release of Manzanilla en rama Deliciosa is also now available, while alongside the Sherries comes the second vintage of the also single vineyard Ojo de Gallo. This Palomino fino table wine was a huge success and the 2015 sold out very quickly.