Manzanilla Aurora 15%, Bodegas Yuste

Appearance

Paleish strawy gold with golden glints, legs.

Nose

Forthcoming saline and yeasty, really showing off the atmosphere of Sanlúcar. Seawater, olive brine, traces of seaweed and flor join a slightly buttery hint of cabezuela to give a fresh, slightly wild aroma. Quite intense and pasada.

Palate

Similar. Lean at first then develops weight and considerable complexity as it warms up on the palate, dry and with a gentle acidity which carries that freshness through along with the slightly savoury pasada notes which linger for some time. A classic wine of its place.

Comments

At last Aurora is back on the market! After the demise of Pedro Romero the XIX century solera (which had no fewer than 25 criaderas!) was bought by Francisco Yuste. He relaunched it in October 2015 with a new label, which at least keeps the original typeface though the colour has changed to blue. The solera now produces Manzanilla Senorita Irene first so the Aurora solera now has a much more manageable 6 criaderas, 3 of which are at the Miraflores bodega and the other three and the solera are at the bodega Los Angeles. The wine was originally named after Pedro Romero's wife, but there's a happy coincidence in that Francisco Yuste's daughter is also called Aurora, and is an executive with the firm. It doesn't say so on the label, but this wine is really a Manzanilla Pasada, it is after all about nine years old, Pedro Romero felt that the word "pasada" had negative connotations. The brand was originally launched in 1907. Notes on the original version can also be found on the blog.

Price

6.50 euros from Er Guerrita

La Bota de Palo Cortado "Bota No" No. 41 22%, Equipo Navazos

Appearance
Bright, fairly deep mahogany with slight reddish tints fading through yellow to a touch of green at the rim, slow legs.
Nose
Incredibly fragrant, complex and concentrated yet lively with sweet notes of cinnamon, caramelised orange peel, dried apricot, garrapiñadas, turron de yema tostada, toast, wafer biscuits, then saline hints, polished furniture, oak, cedar, leather, linseed oil, oil paint, very old yet very clean and fresh as a daisy. There are just too many nuances here to identify but they are all so exquisitely harmonised - honed into a quite beautiful and beguiling aroma which bursts out of the glass.

Palate
Powerful, tangy and dry, the structure is more obvious now and there's some tannin and acidity with traces of salinity and savoury walnut bitterness and wood. This is full-on and deeply tasty making one salivate. Yet quietly in the background there's that sweet side ready to help when the going gets tough, balancing things out to a perfectly balanced finish with interminable length. Superb.
Comments
This wine comes from a very small saca (hence half bottles) made in February 2013 of wine selected from the best butts of the centenarian GF 30 solera from Bodegas Gaspar Florido in Sanlucar. I gather that this solera once belonged to Benito Rodriguez La-Cave, whose family merged with Delgado Zuleta giving them the great Quo Vadis solera. The old firm of Gaspar Florido was bought by Bodegas Pedro Romero in 2007 and the GF 25 and GF 30 soleras were moved to Romero's "sacristy" which, by chance is not far from their original location.

The wines from these soleras were bottled by Florido as "Jerez Viejisimo" as in Gaspar's mind there is a blurring of style between Amontillado, Oloroso and Palo Cortado when they are extremely old. Equipo Navazos however, are convinced that this is definitely a Palo Cortado, and it scored 98 well- deserved Parker points from Luis Gutierrez.
Price
About 79.00 per half bottle. Maybe 6 left in the UK from importer Rhone to Rioja who have just been taken over by Alliance Wines.

16.1.15 Equipo Navazos win 100 Parker Points

La Bota de Amontillado No. 49 "Bota AR" has achieved Parker Perfection. This over 80 year-old wine comes from the very old solera, established in the 1880s, Ansar Real from Gaspar Florido, now owned by Pedro Romero. Only 1,200 half bottles were released in January 2014. Parker’s Spanish expert Luis Gutierrez had this (and much more) to say about it: “This is truly World class: grab it while – and if - you can.” Expect to pay over £80.00 per half bottle and still feel that this is great value for money.

La Bota de Palo Cortado Viejisimo No. 48 Bota Punta, 21.5%, Equipo Navazos

Appearance
Deep golden amber to light mahogany with coppery tints and  a trace of green at the rim, legs.
Nose
Spectacular and super complex, bursting with nuts of all sorts, turron guirlache (almond brittle), American oak, hints of tobacco, oak, a slight hint of yeast autolysis, traces of honey on toast, caramel,and  that implied sweetness and grace of the Amontillado.
Palate
Huge, mouthfilling, dry and textured with deep old wood and walnut grip like an Oloroso but very well rounded with terrific length. There are traces of Oxford marmalade orange peel, raisin, caramel, various nuts, a spicy almost cedary note from the wood and a trace of bitterness at the finish which betrays its Sanlucar and Flor origins. This is a very old and exceptionally fine wine.
Comments
Quite magnificent! It is exquisite, and it  is difficult to do it justice in tasting notes. Sell the car, the TV, just buy some! This wine comes from the end butt of the andana (row of barrels) of the GF 30 solera at Gaspar Florido, now owned by Pedro Romero in Sanlucar. The wine in end butts can be slightly different to that in others as they can be near doorways and have a subtly different microclimate.

The wine was drawn off in December 2013 and is somewhere between 50 and 80 years old. This solera also provided the wine for bottlings 41 and 51, and was located in an old bodega in the Calle Rubinos in the heart of Sanlucar until it was moved to a ramshackle old bodega on the road to Trebujena. It was here that Jesus Barquin, Eduardo Ojeda and Alvaro Giron tasted the wines with old Gaspar Florido and noted that their quality was in direct inverse proportion to the stae of the bodega which housed them. It also housed the solera GF25. Both these soleras are now at Pedro Romero's Sacristia.

This is bottled history: it is becoming increasingly rare in the Sherry area to find wines of this great age which are also balanced, and the chances of coming across gems like this are unlikely to be repeated, especially at this price, much less the luxury of a choice of barrels of them.
Price
A scary £65 per half bottle approximately, but I for one would willingly pay that for this quality. You could easily pay hundreds of pounds for an inferior claret. Imported into UK by Rhone to Rioja.

27.9.13 Three Jerez Bodegas in World Top 100; Mauricio Gonzalez Gordon Dies

Eight Spanish bodegas are among the world’s one hundred best of 2013 in a ranking by Wine and Spirit Magazine’s tenth “Top 100 Tasting Event”. Prizes will be awarded in San Francisco on the 15^th October. Naturally, bodegas from Jerez were included, notably Osborne, Pedro Romero and Valdespino.

The death has been announced of Mauricio Gonzalez Gordon y Diez in Jerez at the age of 89. Born at Hampton Hill, England in 1923, he was president of Gonzalez Byass till he handed over the reins to his son, also Mauricio Gonzalez Gordon.

Mauricio was the son of the legendary Manuel Maria Gonzalez Gordon, who, among other things, wrote the best ever book about Sherry. Milagros Lopez de Carrizosa y Eizaguirre, Mauricio’s wife died just recently. They had two children, Bibiana and Mauricio.

(Imagen Diario Jerez)

Mauricio was a well-educated man, respected in the Sherry trade, and had diverse interests, especially Nature and its conservation. He donated land for the establishment of the Coto Doñana National Park, where he liked to indulge in ornithology.

He was a Hijo Predilecto de Jerez, a member of the Gran Orden de los Caballeros del Vino, and held a gold medal for Oenological Merit, among many other awards.