Palo Cortado 18%, Bodegas Velez

Appearance

Deepish amber with old gold highlights.

Nose

Forthcoming with savoury and slightly saline aromas of toasted nuts, tobacco and dead autumn leaves. There is little sign of the wine having had flor, and it is more on the Oloroso side of things. It is fairly young and at an attractive stage of development with subtle hints of finesse to come.

Palate

Quite full at first but gets lighter and really quite elegant and beautifully rounded as it opens out on the palate thanks to some some glycerine which gives an early impression of sweetness, but which gradually seems to disappear leaving an attractive dry, light, slightly saline finish, and there is virtually no tannin. It has a fair bit of charm and is dangerously easy to drink.

Comments

Bodegas Velez were established in 1857 in Chiclana which is in the Production Zone and truly deserve to be better known. Naturally they have old soleras, and they produce some excellent wines, and this Palo Cortado is one of them. It comes from a solera established in 1891 and interestingly the wine is a selection from butts in the Amontillado solera which have developed more Oloroso-like characteristics as the wine ages.

Price

9.50, De Albariza

Palo Cortado 21%, Fernández Gao

Appearance

Bright chestnut - mahogany fading to amber with copper highlights.

Nose

Aromatic and forthcoming with beautiful faintly sweet notes of almost honeyed hazelnut and almond, turrón yema tostada, faint background notes of fine oak and even a trace of incense. This is an extremely refined and elegant wine which one could sniff for hours. Some Palos Cortados show a slight Oloroso tendency and others a little more Amontillado, and this one is more Amontillado.

Palate

Beautifully rounded on entry with sublime sweet nuttiness following through. It is fairly light and super elegant and complex with hints of exotic woods yet has no tannic rough edges and has a very long refined finish. Lovely.
Comments

This excellent Palo Cortado has an average age of some 20 years which is a lovely age where you can really taste what the wine is like before it takes on too much concentration and wood  flavours. This "new" bodega will surely be successful with wines of this quality. Juan Carlos Sánchez Gago is a very talented and keen young oenologist and the firm really deserves that success, and they are off to a good start. This wine earned 92 points from Wine Enthusiast and a Gran Oro at the New Wines Competition.

Price
30 euros per 50cl bottle ex bodega

 

Palo Cortado 19%, Bodegas González Obregón

Appearance

Deep copper and amber tinted mahogany, legs.

Nose

Very nutty with toasted almond and some walnut, some oak and traces of dried fruit and cinnamon which all comes together to give a complex, characterful bouquet of good Oloroso with an up front crisp Amontillado edge. 

Palate

Full and dry, with lots of nuts, that hint of oak and a trace of tobacco now. As it opens out it swings from Oloroso to Amontillado and back again making it not only entertaining but delicious with a long nutty finish with just a trace of warm spice and exotic woods. 

Comments

This bodega deserves to be much better known. Surprisingly not much is written about it in books on Sherry, but it is an amazing place. It is tiny but full of character and the wines are excellent - though in rather short supply, especially this Palo Cortado. After all the bodega houses a mere 200 butts in total, and two of their wines are supplied to Lustau for their Almacenista range, though not this one. So the solera is tiny and only a few hundred bottles are released annually. At a guess, it is about 15-20 years old.

Price

18 Euros ex bodega

Palo Cortado 18.5%, Juan Piñero

Appearance
Light amber, fairly young looking, copper tints and legs.
Nose
Fairly full and broad, hints of wax, toasted nuts, light salinity, glyceric sweetness, caramel and vanilla from American oak with the slightest savoury twinge. On the surface it has the Amontillado characteristics, but the oxidative Oloroso notes are there in the background. Quite young, this is really interesting. and has the characteristics of both.
Palate
Big, generous and open textured, this is very Oloroso on the palate: plenty of volatile acidity, and up to a point the alcohol, give it an assertive quality which balances out the glycerol leaving a gentle tang. Quite spicy with traces of oak which give way to a long, clean and fairly complex finish.
Comments
This interesting and very good wine is made from grapes from the Sanlúcar pago of El Hornillo, the wine derives from selected butts of Manzanilla with only 1-2 years of crianza biológica followed by many years of crianza oxidativa in a solera with 3 criaderas. Only one saca per year.

Price  
10.91 Euros

Give Them Sherry for Christmas!

Once again the figures make disappointing reading, but the slide is showing signs of slowing and there is the odd bright spot. What worries and surprises me is the poor sale of the classics Oloroso, Amontillado and Palo Cortado, some of the most interesting and complex wines on the planet. Wines which accompany perfectly all sorts of dishes. Stocks are high and the wines have never been better, but prices will be forced to rise, so now is a good time to buy these wines. Christmas time.

So if you're searching for presents that won't bankrupt you and which will offer someone something really unique and special, it's easy: give them Sherry for Christmas!

An Interesting Interview with Ramiro Ibañez Espinar

Ramiro Ibañez Espinar has degrees in agriculture and oenology. Born in Sanlucar, he began his career in the Sherry zone before going off to other wine producing areas of Spain and other countries. Now back, and after working for various bodegas he has decided to become a winemaking and viticulture consultant, doing much research, especially into vineyards. He has produced an interesting wine which he calls “Encrucijado 2012. His latest idea is looking for the “Real” Palo Cortado. Here is an interview with him in Mas Jerez with fellow Jerez oenologist, Reyes Gomez:

Ramiro with his Encrucijado (foto + jerez)

What exactly is Encrucijado 2012?

It is an artisan vintage wine aged under flor. It is made with Palomino Fino and five other native varieties which historically played a minor role and may have helped the natural development of Palo Cortado. Basically, it is a very young Palo Cortado.

It is Sherry, but outside the DO?

It cannot be a DO wine because it uses grapes which, although they are as old and historic as the Palomino, are no longer included in the Reglamento.

What are the Pros and Cons of going it alone?

The freedom gives one more knowledge, and access to different soils, grape varieties, wines, different vinifications, and the possibility of getting to know the great unknown personalities of Jerez vitiviniculture who have a treasure trove of wisdom. On the other hand, one’s diary is full and one covers considerable distances, but that’s fine.

You are committing yourself to the recuperation of the individual Jerez vineyards. Is that where the future lies?

For a very long time there have been Sherries on whose labels the Pago (vineyard area) or actual vineyard where they came from were indicated. Many others could have done this but chose not to. And of course these wines have an outstanding pedigree. Looking through the thousands of years of history of what is now the Sherry area, you can see that the one common denominator in all these thirty centuries is our soil, the albariza. During this time all sorts of grape varieties white and red have come and gone, dry wines, sweet wines, unfortified wines. Not even biological ageing, oxidative ageing and the solera system, which only appeared in the last couple of hundred years, could be considered indispensable. However much all the civilisations which have passed through here improved the wines grown on albariza, our soil will have something special independently of the grape and winemaking technique. So somehow some of us are trying to put the importance of the albariza area and its individual vineyards back on the map. At least some bodegas recognise this importance.

Now THAT'S Albariza! (foto + Jerez)

Are hand-made individual wines valued in the area?

Such wines are made by artisans all over the area, some are fantastic, some not so good, but they all have personality and express their origin. Hopefully we will see before too long lots of small, quality producers like in France.

With which dish would you match Encrucijado 2012?

Baked sea bass, shellfish soup, duck pate, gilthead baked in salt or any Asian dish.

Any future projects, or are your hands full with Encrucijada?

In a few weeks I’ll be releasing an artisan white wine from one of the oldest single vineyards in the area made from Palomino, but here there are still old pre clonal revolution vines.There is a lot to do, and many projects in the pipeline.

6.1.13 New York Times; Wine Spectator; Reyes Magos

New York Times visits Sherry Country

The New York Times travel section decided to delve into the mystery of Palo Cortado, and visited two bodegas in El Puerto and one in Sanlucar for their report. They visited Gutierrez Colosia and Obregon in El Puerto and Hidalgo La Gitana in Sanlucar, three family-run bodegas who stock these wines, as complex as they are beautiful, to try to understand Palo Cortado.

The NYT discovered (what we all know) that Palo Cortado is a chalk cask marking which identifies the wine in the form of an angled stroke with a short horizontal line crossing it. Juan Carlos Gutierrez told them that he couldn’t tell them how to make PC, it just happens. Sherry is not just any wine; there are factors which can’t be controlled by humans. Manolo Obregon agreed, saying that PC is an accident. It is quite a rare one too, Obregon rarely sell any, but the picturesque bodega attracts many visitors.

Javier Hidalgo, one who really knows Sherry and has written books on the subject, declared that “it is no accident. We make a quite a lot and it has taken generations of family to do it. It lacks the delicacy of Amontillado, the structure of Oloroso and the freshness of Manzanilla. We only sell about 800 bottles of PC a year and that’s more for prestige than profit”. He then put the remains in his glass back into a butt - of Amontillado. When quizzed about this, and would that not change the style of the wine, he shook his head, saying no, it’s like a tear in the ocean. Then he switched off the lights.

Source Diario de Jerez

For actual article:  http://travel.nytimes.com/2013/01/06/travel/sharing-a-sherry-treasured-in-spain.html

Wine Spectator listing for Lustau

The American publication The Wine Spectator publishes a list of the 100 best wines of the year, all having been awarded 90 or more points, and in position 82 is a Sherry - Amontillado Solera Reserva Los Arcos from Emilio Lustau. Other Spanish wines also feature in the list, from Rioja, Almansa, Ribera del Duero and Bierzo.

Reyes Magos (Three Kings) visit Jerez

The Kings' cavalcade hit the streets today, throwing millions of sweets to the children.

Source Diario de Jerez

Palo Cortado 19% Waitrose, Lustau

Appearance
Deep amber with the slightest trace of black and coppery tints fading through autumnal yellow to a pale rim with just a trace of green, legs.
Nose
At first a hint of meaty oloroso, then a trace of Marmite and some toasted almonds and hazelnuts, fairly light and genuinely neither oloroso nor amontillado, but with characteristics of both, but leaning towards amontillado, not particularly forceful.
Palate
Dry, slightly fuller and definitely more oloroso, quite savoury with good texture, slightly bitter walnut and a trace of something burnt, fairly low acidity balanced by the bitterness to give it a tang. Slightly odd, (dare I say confected?) but a very pleasant wine, especially with cheese or stews.
Comments
This wine is from Waitrose's more up-market range of own labels from Lustau with a brown label and the brand "Solera Jerezana". It also carries the Lustau brand "Solera Reserva". Lustau themselves market a Palo Cortado from their Solera Reserva range called "Peninsula", also 19%, though it is unlikely to be the same wine as the price is quite different; Peninsula is usually over £20, and the Waitrose one is £8,89. After referring to my notes on Peninsula, it is definitely not the same, but represents good value.

Palo Cortado Vides19%, Lustau Almacenista

Appearance
Deep amber fading through amber to a yellow rim with a trace of green, legs.
Nose
Very well rounded, harmonious, forthcoming, quite amontillado in style with traces fresh tobacco, toasted hazelnut, and a hint of toasted oak, complex and graceful.
Palate
Tangy - more so than expected, nutty- but more in the Amo. hazelnut style, lighter than the Oloroso weight expected, dry but with that implied sweetness, beautifully poised and rounded, long and refined.
Comments
Quite delicious. From the small Almacenista bodega Vides in Jerez. This wine is from a solera of only 50 butts, bottled by Lustau.

Price

£20.50 (50cl) from Drinkmonger

Vinification in Jerez: Making the Wine

The dry wines

With the grapes harvested and brought to the bodegas the next phase begins: making wine. First the grapes are analysed for sugar content (they will need to ferment to a minimum of 10.5 % vol to be able to make Sherry), then total acidity and pH are checked. Next the grapes go into a destemming machine and on to a crusher where they are gently squeezed to make the job of the press a little easier. Sometimes some stems are left in to help the juice drain better from the pulp in the press. Great care must be taken to avoid the risks of oxidation and excess tannin. The harder you press, the more juice you extract, but the more tannic it gets, so the pressing is very carefully done. The first juice (must) to come out is called "primera yema" and accounts for around two thirds of the total extracted. This is the finest juice, low in phenolics and will go on to produce the Finos, Manzanillas and Amontillados. The "segunda yema" accounts for about 25% of the must and is more phenolic and so destined for the oxidatively aged wines, the Palos Cortados and olorosos.

Once extracted, the musts are lightly filtered to remove any solids then the pH is corrected if necessary with the addition of tartaric acid. With the acidity correct, all that remains to be done is to add a touch of SO2 (sulphur dioxide) and leave the juice - or "mosto" to settle for a day or so. Now the must is pumped to the fermentation tanks where a tiny amount of already fermenting must ("pie de cuba") is added to help the fermentation get under way.Control of fermentation temperature is less critical  in Jerez than in other places, and it proceeds at about 23-25 degrees C which helps the yeast to convert all the sugar into alcohol. After about a week the fermentation comes to an end and the must is left to settle and the lees separated off. During settling a film of yeast appears on the surface of the must which is called "Flor". Malo-lactic fermentation may or may not be carried out.

Flor seen through the bunghole at Los Caireles (foto:pacobarroso)

Now is the time for the first classification of the musts. They are examined sensorially and analytically, and depending on their characteristics are classified into two broad groups: those which will age biologically and become Finos, Manzanillas and Amontillados, or those which will age oxidatively and become Palos Cortados or Olorosos. Each must will be classified with a marking thus: / ("raya") /. ("raya y punto") or //("dos rayas") according to its lightness or fullness of body. After clasification, the musts will be fortified to 15.5 % vol for the biological raya and raya y punto musts, which will allow the flor to grow, and to 18 % vol for the oxidative dos rayas musts which precludes the growth of flor. The musts are now racked - transferred to clean butts - and stored. In the case of the biological musts they are called "sobretablas", and the oxidative wines are called "anadas". Both are only now referred to as "wine". Here the wine will wait for further, more precise classification before going to the appropriate solera.

These sweet wines

Meanwhile, the PX grapes which are picked at about 16 Beaume (or about 300 grams per litre (g/l) of sugar) and then dried under the hot Andalucian sun have reached incredible levels of (natural) sugar - 450-500 g/l of must! They have also dried out - raisined ("pasificada") and cannot be pressed in the same way as the Palomino. So vertical presses are used which exert far more pressure than the paltry 5 or 6 kg/cm2 used for Palomino. In order to let the (much more viscous) juice run from the pomace, the presses are loaded carefully using "esterillas" (round esparto mats) alternately with bunches of raisins ("pasas") like a huge sandwich. When the pressure is applied and aromatic honey like juice runs free. Fermentation generally starts spontaneously but slowly and the must will be fortified to about 10% vol to stabilise it. The following spring after it has settled out the solids, the wine will be fortified to between 15 and 17 % vol and filled into butts ready for the solera. These wines have higher than usual levels of tannin as the raisins cannot be removed from the stems, however with all that sugar and flavour you wouldn't really notice.

The Moscatel grapes are treated either in exactly the same way as PX, or without the "asoleo" (drying in the sun). Many Moscateles are made simply with super ripe grapes picked straight from the vine which are pressed in a normal press then fortified soon after fermentation has begun. The result is a pale golden wine, very sweet and with the aromas of fresh rather than dried grapes. It requires no ageing.

The colouring wines

These are produced in small quantities for the purpose of giving the expected colour to the blended wines such as Cream and Medium. While they contain a lot of sugar, they are not good enough as sweetening wines. Palomino grape must is boiled down on direct heat to concentrate the must down to 1/5 of its original volume and to caramelize the sugars. This liquid is called "arrope" and is also used for making desserts and as a preservative in jams. To make colouring wine, the arrope is mixed 1/3 to 2/3 with Palomino must and slowly fermented to about 8 % vol, and after settling it is fortified to 15 or 17 % vol and aged in soleras ready for the commercial Medium and Cream blends.

See also: Asoleo