13.4.18 Tio Pepe en rama 2018 Launched

The 9th release of Tio Pepe en rama is now available. After an initial selection of 120 butts in October, Antonio Flores has selected the wine from just 62 butts from the Constancia and Rebollo soleras, both of which are made from Macharnudo musts. Autumn 2017 was very hot and followed by a cooler winter, with decent rainfall into spring which gave the wine a healthy layer of flor which is reflected in the wine’s yeastiness. For the first time it will also be available in magnums.

Molinero 2016 11%, Cuatro Ojos Wines

Appearance
Bright pale golden straw with golden glints.
Nose
Attractive and quite intense Moscatel nose, fragrant - almost perfumed - and very floral with notes of jasmine, citrus blossom and honeysuckle and a definite grapiness with the faintest hints of mineral and salinity.
Palate
Fresh and dry with loads of grapey flavour up front. Acidity is fairly low but you wouldn't really notice as there is a clean mineral backbone which helps maintain balance, and a faint creaminess, and there is a chalky texture too, no doubt from the albariza. It has a long delicate fragrant finish.
Comments

This is the first release of this interesting wine made by three girls in El Puerto de Santa Maria. It is named in honour of their viti-viniculture tutor Araceli Molinero and is made from Moscatel grapes grown in albariza soil. The must is fermented in tank and the wine is aged, surprisingly, in old Amontillado and Oloroso butts for 3 months on its lees before bottling without filtration. It spends two months in numbered bottles before release. A vintage date on the label would be helpful. 

Price
20.50 euros Licores Corredera

La Bota de Palo Cortado 72 "Pata de Gallina" 20.5%, Equipo Navazos

Appearance
Polished antique chestnut with brassy glints fading to amber at the rim.
Nose
Fresh and gently crisp at the start with notes of fine oak mingling with toasted almond and hazelnut along with traces of marzipan, pastry filled with orange cream and tobacco. It is aromatic, elegant and complex as it opens out with some hints of Oloroso, and slightly stronger hints of Amontillado.
Palate
Mouthfilling and generous yet super refined flavour up front with lots of nuts, pastry, a faint hint of ginger and orange cake and those fine, almost aromatic woods. There is remarkably little tannin and the texture is exceptionally well rounded and smooth with a hint of sweetness, probably from glycerine, which gives it great balance and impeccable charm. Delicious!
Comments

Pata de Gallina translates as "hen's foot" and relates to a cask marking denoting an oxidatively aged wine with a particularly well rounded, smooth, almost viscous character. Equipo Navazos have worked with Bodegas Ferando de Castilla for some years - in fact their logo derives from a photo taken there. In the case of this particular wine, it came from a selection made at the Jerez bodega of the almacenista Juan García Jarana five or six years ago, from which La Bota 34 was drawn, and which has been kindly stored at Ferando de Castilla in a tiny six butt Equipo Navazos "little altar" (3,2,1) solera. So this wine comes from that same solera but with five years more ageing, and it has an estimated average age of around 30 years and was bottled in January 2017, unfiltered naturally, at La Guita.

Price
58 euros per 50 cl bottle, Er Guerrita

10.4.18 Vinoble Latest and Dates for International Sherry Week

Vinoble is back with a bang this year (3-5 June), the crisis is over and strenuous efforts have been made by the city council and Consejo Regulador to make this tenth edition the best yet. It is the perfect event to show off the wines of Jerez and also the gastronomy and culture of the city. There will be a free daily tasting with capacity for 100 people as well as a special Tokaj tasting for 30 people. There will also be tastings of Fondillón Sweet Bordeaux and Port among others, not to mention Sherry and some of the leading bodegas will do their own. Two sessions will be devoted to the pagos and the Consejo will do a tasting of vintage wines made from the treading of the grapes at the Fiesta de la Vendimia and looked after at its bodega San Ginés. There will also be the opportunity to try wines from the Poets Laureate butts and one laid down in honour of the visit of Prince (now King) Felipe. Vinoble is special because it is the only exhibition to specifically promote fortified and sweet wines which, as Consejo Director César Saldaña put it, “tend to disappear behind a tide of red and white wines at most shows”.

Meanwhile the dates have been announced for International Sherry Week 2018. This, the largest celebration of Sherry in the world, will take place on 8 – 14 October. The dates have been put forward so they fall while it is still summer time and it doesn’t conflict with European Wine Tourism Day. Registration for events is open now so it is time to plan yours! The chance of winning Sherry to the value of 1,000 euros for the most innovative and original event is a great incentive.

9.4.18 Good Start to the Year for Sherry Sales

The Consejo Regulador was a little worried at the end of 2017 as sales had dropped by 5% with a volume of 3.3 million litres, but the start of 2018 has brought some cheer. In the course of January and February this year sales rose 4% to 3.8 million litres or 140,000 litres more than in the same period last year.

In the home market, which has been very encouraging recently, sales were about 1.5 million litres after a slight drop of 0.4% in the first two months of 2018, but it is hoped that this drop can be recovered in the coming Feria season of April and May in Andalucía, where large amounts of Sherry are consumed. Exports, on the other hand, grew by 6.6% in January and February to 2.37 million litres. This growth in sales abroad, where ever falling sales of the cheaper lower quality BOBs are concentrated, is wholly thanks to the UK, traditionally Sherry’s biggest market and where the Consejo has high hopes of recovery. Here sales jumped by an amazing 40% in the first two months of 2018.

Sales to the UK rose from 557,000 litres to 780,000 litres for the same period, a rise of some 225,000 litres. Of the other two large traditional export markets, Holland saw a fall of 3% with a little under 600,000 litres sold in January and February and Germany saw a 0.2% rise to 324,000 litres. Across the Atlantic, and after a promising year in the US, sales in North America lost steam in the first two months and fell by 18.5%, with volumes in the US remaining largely unchanged at around 160,000 litres, very slightly above the 2016 figure. In Asia, although sales volumes are small at around 34,000 litres, they shrank by 25% in January and February although the principal Asian market, Japan, saw growth of 5% to around 25,000 litres.

This recovery at the start of 2018 is not enough to balance out the 4.65% (3.27 million litres) drop in sales over the course of 2017 with the home market falling by 1.7% and export markets by 6.3%.

8.4.18 Historic Tasting in Sanlúcar

On Friday night Antonio Peña who runs the great wine shop De Albariza put on a really interesting tasting. It consisted of comparing some classic Sherries, bottled 40 years ago or more, with the same wines bottled recently. Antonio Barbadillo (Sacristía AB) gave a fascinating talk and brought two Manzanillas of his own. It was a wonderful tasting, and here is a list of the wines along with brief comments:

Manzanilla Sacristía AB Primera saca 2011 (@ 7 years in bottle)

Quite deep in colour, slight hint of Amontillado, traces of biscuit, caramel, complex, lovely.

Manzanilla Sacristía AB Primera saca 2017 (@ 1 year in bottle)

Fresh, complex, full, saline and rounded, classic.

Palo Cortado Wellington, Hidalgo La Gitana (@ 40 years in bottle)

Early hints of diesel, cardboard, slightly drier but opened out beautifully, delicious

Palo Cortado Wellington VORS, Hidalgo La Gitana (@ 1 year in bottle)

Very slightly darker, sweeter, hints orange, cinnamon, saline, charming

Amontillado del Duque, González Byass (@ 40 years in bottle)

A bit leaner and cardboardy at first but opened out beautifully,

Amontillado del Duque VORS, González Byass (@ 1 year in bottle)

A shade sweeter, hint of tobacco, delightful. These two were remarkably similar.

Amontillado Quo Vadis, Delgado Zuleta (@ 40 years in bottle)

Tight at first but remarkable complexity as it opened out, crisp saline, elegant, long

Amontillado Quo Vadis VORS, Delgado Zuleta (@ 1 year in bottle)

A shade sweeter, even a faint fruit note but still saline, crisp and long

Sherry Crema, González Byass (almost certainly well over 50 years in bottle)

This was without doubt the oldest wine but it is sadly no longer available so we couldn’t obtain a newer version. It was fruity, balanced, not over sweet and quite delicious, made with a little Moscatel as well, as was the style in the past, and it was aged as a blend. It had the most sediment, so it had certainly lost both colour and sweetness - but certainly none of its appeal.

It was fascinating to see how well the old wines had developed in bottle and how things have changed. Firstly it was hard to date the old bottlings precisely as they had no lot numbers on the label, and no back label, so we had to make educated guesses. The recently bottled Palos Cortados and Amontillados were all VORS, but as the system was only introduced in the year 2,000, that qualification was not available to the old wines though they have the same solera age, being effectively the same wines, just with more bottle age. The old corks showed their age more than the wine. They were all of the T type which is not terribly suitable for laying-down and so have a tendency to dry out, and with one exception they all broke. Not unexpectedly, the old wines were a little closed and showed a hint of reduction, requiring persuasion to open them out, and naturally they were very slightly paler and drier. Once they had opened out they were reassuringly similar to the new wines which all had a little more up front charm, at least at first. Times have moved on, labels have changed, but Sherry is as good as ever.

Vino Blanco 2015 12%, Navazos Niepoort

Appearance
Bright mid strawy yellow with golden highlights.
Nose

Quite full and subtly complex with a certain richness and noticeable flor bitterness with slight floral and herbal hints like camomile. There are also gentle fruit notes of quince, apple and yellow plum and a touch of mineral. There are even slight Fino notes.

Palate

Full and very tasty. Perfectly balanced acidity with just the right tanginess helped by a zing of flor, lots of appley fruit and minerals and attractive strawy herbal notes. Again a hint of Fino, but more fruit. The finish is long and clean with apple and mineral and a faint bitter flourish.

Comments

Palomino grapes for this excellent wine were picked in the pago Macharnudo and pressed lightly for maximum quality (mosto yema). The must was fermented with indigenous yeast in 40 year old butts where it remained under flor for nearly a year before bottling with minimal filtration in 2017. The idea behind this wine is to reproduce the style that was widely drunk in the area in the XVIII century. Wines for export were generally fortified but for local consumption were not, so this is not unlike a Fino, but without the extra alcohol, and with less time under flor. It now has at least a year in bottle and is opening out nicely, and it should be be rewarding to  keep for at least 5 years.

Price
16.50 euros, Er Guerrita