Oloroso Piñero VORS 22%, Juan Piñero

Appearance

Mid amber-mahogany, orange highlights and a trace of green at the rim, legs.

Nose

Full, this is an old wine with some concentration. There are touches of oak, glyceric sweetness, dried orange peel, nuts and cinnamon, but all in perfect harmony giving an enticing and complex, yet fresh and elegant, bouquet.

Palate

After a crisp start it opens out with a delightful display of Oloroso-ness, sheer generosity and grace with depth. There is tannin and some volatile acidity but they are quite gentle for the age of the wine and balanced by glycerol leaving one to enjoy the lovely faintly spiced flavour which lingers on for ages. A lovely wine.

Comments

This delicious old Oloroso is well over 30 years old - more like 40 - and well worth its 94 Parker points. The grapes came from the pagos Añina and Macharnudo. Juan Piñero is certainly making his mark, and no wonder.

Price
Around 38 euros per 50cl bottle

Fino 15%, Pemartín (Diez-Mérito)

Appearance

Pale straw with golden highlights, light legs.

Nose

Forthcoming with traces of background fruit balancing with gentle flor. There is a nice dry feel to it with notes of straw, and a slight trace of dried herbs or scrub. This wine is not more than four years old but is nonetheless quite attractive and typical Jerez.

Palate

Decent acidity carries the flavour through with a gentle tension between the bitterness of the flor and that hint of fruit. It has a decent presence on the palate and is clean and very tasty with a fairly long finish. Excellent everyday wine.

Comments

A very good wine for the money, and worth a little more. This is really the basic range from Diez Mérito, but it is pretty sound. It is not cheap Sherry, it is inexpensive Sherry. Pemartin was once a famous bodega but was taken over by Rumasa in 1959. After the Government expropriation of Rumasa in 1983 it was tied in with BISA (Bodegas Internacionales) and sold to Marcos Eguizabal, whose heirs sold the business in 2016 to the Espinosa family.

Price

3.00 euros ex bodega

Bodegas: Fernández-Gao

This firm dates back to 1750 according to its labels, making it one of the earliest of the bigger firms. It was founded by Manuel Fernández who came from the north of Spain but was living in Jerez. He was succeeded by his son Juan Alonso Fernández, also born in the north but married to the Jerezana Ana María López. They were wine producers selling to the bodegas.

Their son was José María Fernández y López (1798-1864) who went on to marry the Sevillana Josefa María González de Molina. Between 1818 and 1828 the firm had extensive vineyards in good pagos and began to sell most of the wine they produced to Manuel María González, founder of González Byass.

One of their three children, José María Fernández González (1843-1914) went for further education to England, thus guaranteeing the continuity of the firm. He married Francisca de Asís Gao Fernández de los Rios and they had seven children. As well as being a lawyer and leading bodeguero/businessman, he was noted in politics as a member of the liberal party, becoming mayor of Jerez in 1909 and president of the Tempúl Water Company. He bought the Viña san Agustín vineyard.

In 1896 he formed an association with Manuel Cantillo y García, who had a bodega in Calle Arcos (later bought by Manuel de Misa) creating the wine company Fernández y Cantillo which would last for a few decades. Some years before, he had already bought part of the wine business and equipment of the British Consul, CH Furlong.

As a result of family matters, Fernando Fernández Gao y González, born in 1878 the son of José María and Francisca de Asís Gao, took over the business in 1919. After Cantillo’s death in 1914 the trading name was changed from Fernández y Cantillo to Fernández-Gao Hermanos and would remain the same till 1956. They were operating largely as producers/almacenistas. Fernando received special dispensation to unite his two surnames into one: Fernández-Gao. He was married to Ana María González y Travieso.

Among the firm’s best-known wines were Fino La Mina and two Amontillados Finos: Albarizuela and El 68 (year the solera was established), Oloroso El 50, Royal Sherry and Manzanilla La Africana. Among the brandies were Legendario, Timonel and Novecientos Cuatro, as well as Fegach Gin. Many of these attractive labels were designed by the Jerez graphic artist José Luis Torres. Such was the firm’s reputation that in 1919 the newspaper ABC dedicated a full reportage to it. On Fernando’s death in 1949, ownership of the bodega was split among his and his siblings’ (Matilde, Fernando and Ramiro José Fernández Gao) children.

The bodega in Calle Arcos still stands today

In 1953 Fernando’s children set up a company Hijos de Fernando Fernández-Gao y González at a bodega in Calle Lechugas, but it only lasted ten years before they sold out to Pedro Domecq. Matilde’s children set up a company Bilbao Fernánedez-Gao, but that only lasted five years. Ramiro José’s children sold out to McKenzie next door in 1967. Ramiro, who was chosen as Capataz de Honor at the Fiestas de la Vendimia in 1960, and his stepbrother Diego Ferguson would become directors of Harveys who bought out McKenzie in 1970.

But that was only a temporary ending to the story. In 2014 Antonio Sánchez Gago, a Jerez businessman bought the company name and brand names of Fernández-Gao and re-launched the firm using some old family soleras. He bought a couple of old bodegas which he has restored, in Calle Pajarete (ex Real Tesoro) and in Calle Arcos - 100 metres from where the original firm started out.

Interior patio of the Calle Arcos bodega next to Lustau

The smart new range of wines

Moscatel Ambrosía 18%, Sánchez Romate

Appearance

Deep, opaque walnutty brown to a trace of brown-stained amber at the rim, legs.

Nose

Old and concentrated Moscatel, you can even smell the pulpy texture from the well-sunned pasas give it its charming fruity character along with traces of dried fig, toffee and caramel.

Palate

Rich and viscous yet fresh with lots of dried Moscatel fruit and very tangy. For such a joyous wine it is quite serious, intense and deeply flavoured with that pulp texture providing grip and the fresh acidity stopping it cloying and giving terrific length.

Comments

Ambrosia was the mythological nectar of the Greek Gods, so one expects a decent wine and it certainly is. It is outstanding. The wine is late harvested and well sunned Moscatel de Chipiona, the type known as Moscatel de Pasas. Production is very limited as there are only five solera butts and the wine is only occasionally released at around fifteen years of solera age. Despite belonging to Romate's Reservas Especiales range, there is surprisingly no mention of it on the website, though they are embarking on a new one, something quite a few bodegas should consider. Interestingly, since the bodega was founded in 1781, they released a special bi-centenary bottling using an old label, and if you feel rich, Vilaviniteca still have two bottles for 295.00 euros each. It would offer a fairly rare glimpse of how it ages in bottle for well over thirty years.

Price

About 18 euros from El Corte Inglés

Current presentation

Bicentenary presentation

La Bota de Manzanilla Pasada 40 "Bota Punta" 16.2%, Equipo Navazos

Appearance

Some depth to the colour: amber to golden straw with a suggestion of green at rim, legs.

Nose

Character-laden and saline, olive brine in a storm at the fishing harbour, there is still a wild feel but it is evolving some gentility and certainly plenty of depth. Still plenty of flor bitterness, a hint of bread and a very slight seaweed note with oxidative nutty buttery traces reminding one of Amontillado but it's not there yet - certainly in Sanlucar terms - you can even smell some texture.

Palate

Full, intense, but still very much Manzanilla. Super complex wine which can't let go of its youth. There is age, concentration and oxidation there yet it is as fresh and clean as a daisy. Slightly salty and perfectly balanced with terrific length, this is a very serious wine yet still exciting to drink.

Comments

This outstanding wine comes from a 15 butt solera set up by the then capataz Rafael Rivas at the La Guita bodega in Calle Misericordia. Two of those butts showed even more intense character than the rest, one of them being the bota punta, from which this wine comes. (La Bota numbers 10, 20, 30, 39 also come from it) Interestingly the butts are filled to "tocadedos" (almost full) which is very unusual. It means that the surface area of this very old Manzanilla is much smaller and therefore there is much less flor. This flor is just kept alive by small sacas and rocios but has less resistance to the oxidation and rising alcoholic strength which are apparent in this bottling. After wine was drawn from the bota punta for La Bota 10 in January 2008 the butt was refreshed not with wine from the first criadera, but wine from the other solera butts. They were then refreshed by wine from the first criadera. This enhanced the intensity of the wine in the bota punta and the routine has been followed since. The wine now has over 40 months in bottle and is showing no sign of tiring.

Price

49.65 euros for 50cl bottle at Vilaviniteca

8.6.16 Mildew Likely to Reduce Harvest; Fiesta de la Vendimia

The rain in May followed by hot sunshine has provided the perfect conditions for mildew and it is a very serious outbreak. Some small vineyards have completely succumbed, especially coastal ones where there is more humidity, and some fear losses of 50-70% around Sanlúcar, 30-60% around Trebujena and 50% around Chipiona. Worse still, it is spreading towards vineyards further inland where 15-30% of vineyard is affected. Those who don’t have crop insurance are being encouraged to contract it.

A flooded vineyard (foto:miguelangelgonzalez/diario jerez)

According to Francisco Guerrero, president of the independent growers, one factor is the lack of treatment or insufficient treatment of the vines due to a lack of financial resources resulting from the difficulties of the cooperatives to whom they sell their grapes. “In a dry year people can get away with the minimum of treatment and the heavy rains took them by surprise. “ Once the mildew has spread it is more difficult to treat, and its effects could reduce next year’s harvest as well. He feels, however, that it is still too early to predict harvest losses accurately. Vines are not the only plants affected; mildew also attacks tomatoes, potatoes and onions, also important industries.

Mildew in all its ugliness (foto:lavozdigital)

The Fiesta de la Vendimia with its famous treading of the grapes on the Cathedral steps will take place on 6^th September, two days earlier than last year. From the 8^th till the 10^th there will be a great Sherry tasting “De Copa en Copa” hosted by bodegas at the Claustros de Santo Domingo at which there will also be tapas. Another top event, the Catas Magistrales will take place on the 8,9,10 and the 15,16,17 September. Each event will be hosted by a bodega and there will be food matching with the Sherry.

Sherry Ice Cream!

Pedro Ximénez or Moscatel poured over ice cream is delicious, but things have developed further. Much further. How about Fino or Amontillado sorbet? Or even Sherry Vinegar sorbet? Exciting, creative cuisine is not new in the Marco de Jerez, and all these are already available.

In Chipiona, at the Heladeria Valenciana, José Antonio Montalbán makes his grandfather’s recipe using Moscatel de Pasas Los Madroñales from the local Cooperative Católica Agricola. It is lovely, but not everyone is using ice cream as a dessert.

(foto:cosasdecome)

Master ice cream maker Carlos Sancho of Heladeria Per Piacere has been working with chef Blas Pérez of the Hotel Conil Park and Raúl Castillo chef at Parrilla de Matilde in Cádiz to create a range of sorbets based on products of bodegas Sánchez Romate, who are keen to collaborate. They have already produced sorbets with Fino, Amontillado and vinegar.

(foto:cosasdecome)

Savoury dishes have been enhanced by these sorbets, for example Blas Pérez’ millfeuille of nachos made from lentil flour alternating with mojama (thin sliced, salt cured tuna) and ling roe, almond paste and topped with Amontillado sorbet.

(foto:cosasdecome)

They have also created a rather special PX ice cream. It pays homage to the “candie”, a Spanish corruption of “candy and egg”, a traditional restorative drink made from Oloroso, egg yolk and sugar.