Tio Pepe en rama 2017 15%, González Byass

Appearance

Lightly strawy gold with amber and golden highlights, legs.

Nose

Powerful flor yeast notes with hints of bread dough and bitter almond dominate a faint Palomino fruit note, and there is certainly some salinity. Super fresh, and as its maker Antonio Flores says, it is "alive and wild" yet it has considerable depth and is certainly more complex than standard Tio Pepe.

Palate

It really grabs the attention with a most attractive attack with full-on flor and salinty which gives way to a full, softer, deeper rounder Jerez style of Fino. Acidity is low, but replaced by the flor bitterness which gives it its wild character. It is very dry and clean with lots of flavour and terrific length.

Comments

"Vivo y salvaje" as the bodegas describes it (lively and raw/wild), the 2017 release, which is the eighth edition, comes from 60 butts, laboriously and skilfully chosen from an initial selection of 100 by oenologist Antonio Flores in the bodega La Constancia. The cold winter was followed by seemingly endless wind from the Levante but the flor did a good job of protecting the wine, which was bottled when it was at  its thickest point, and the result is excellent, bursting with yeasty saline freshness. Another success.The new wine was launched by Antonio Flores at the Puerta del Sol square in Madrid, close to the famous illuminated Tio Pepe sign. You can see the man himself at work here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXjDjOws_KQ

Price

16 euros, Los Patios de Beatas, Malaga

26.4.17 Tio Pepe en rama 2017 Launched

The VIIIth edition of the annual spring release of Tio Pepe en rama is now on the market. The firm’s oenologist and IWC Best Fortified Winemaker Antonio Flores, made a selection from 60 butts in the La Constancia and Rebollo bodegas. He chose these barrels as they best showed the moment when the venencia breaks through the flor and releases the wine’s wonderful aromas. He is not short of descriptive powers and pronounced the wine “elegant and aromatic on the nose with the characteristic intense yeasty aroma of the flor intermingled with the distinct almond notes typical of Palomino Fino: fresh, complex and intense, salty and expressive, but most of all alive and wild”. He continued that it is “a version of Tio Pepe that is fragrant, intense, brilliant, salty and immaculate”. Available in the UK from 8^th May, so it's time to pester your wine merchant.