Garum 2017 14.5%, Bodegas Luis Pérez

Appearance
Very deep blacky red fading to a tight pinky red rim.

Nose

Full, fairly rich with faint traces of almost smokey spice and lots of big soft perfectly ripe red and black fruits. The blend works really well with the jammy Merlot, blueberry Petit Verdot and faintly smokey mulberry of the Syrah. Traces of oak add further complexity without interfering with the big soft generous fruity character of the wine.

Palate

Quite full and super smooth with a lovely southern warmth to it. The structure is subtle with gentle ripe barely noticeable tannins - though they are there - and enough acidity to balance the plentiful fruit. This gives the wine a lovely plump, easy drinking texture and it has very good length.

Comments

This delicious wine is made using approximately 70% Merlot, and 15% each of Syrah and Petit Verdot which are grown in the vineyards of the important Pérez family´s Hacienda Vistahermosa in the pago Corchuelo just outside Jerez. The vines, which grow on a chalky marl soil, are tended by hand and yields are kept low with manual harvesting at night. Each grape variety is vinified separately in stainless steel tanks after cooling and passing over a selection table and some of the grapes go in whole. The malolactic fermentation begins in the tanks and is finished in  a mix of used American and French oak barrels where it remains ageing for 12 months before blending and bottling without clarification.

Price

9.50 euros, De Albariza

Fino Añada 2011 15%, González Byass

Appearance
Pale to mid strawy gold with golden highlights.
Nose

Much more intense and completely different to the 2010. Dry and ripe with strawy, biscuity almost baked sour dough notes and aromas of toasted almond mingling with gently bitter flor and a faint buttery, slightly autolytic character. There is also the faintest note of oxidation which is absent in the 2010 which is light, subtle and elegant while this is more of a blockbuster - but also lovely.

Palate

Again much fuller, very dry and a little more mature tasting, despite being a year younger, with intense nuts and more bitter flor and that teasing slightly oxidative note. It has terrific length. Interestingly it is one degree lower in alcohol when one might expect the reverse being from a hotter year. And it is amazing how two such different wines can both be so good in such different ways, something the solera system would iron out, which is what makes vintage wines so interesting.

Comments

GB have released two very interesting Finos from very different but consecutive vintages: 2010 (QV) and 2011 which came from exactly the same vineyards in the pagos Carrascal and Macharnudo and which were made in exactly the same way, so the only differences are the vintages and one year of age. That gives us the rare opportunity to compare wines from these two years. Vintage Fino is not easy to produce as it cannot be refreshed the way it normally would be in a solera, and so the alcohol level can rise killing off the flor. It is more or less up to the Gods - and expert oenologists - as to how the wine will turn out, especially after 7 years. The 2010 came from a cooler wetter year while this 2011 came from a hot dry year with plenty of Levante and higher average temperatures, giving a good contrast. The harvest began quite early on 17th August and was of exceptional quality, and the wine was bottled almost exactly 7 years later on 16th August 2018, just 700 x 50cl bottles.

Price

32.75 euros per 50cl, Licores Corredera

6.1.19 Various News Items

It is great to be able to report on the expansion rather than the closure of a Sherry bodega. Things have been going well in recent years for José Luis Barrero, owner of the Sanlúcar bodega Sánchez Ayala so he has decided to invest in increased wine stocks in order to grow the business and this will require the purchase of another bodega in which to store it all. So far he has bought no fewer than 670 top quality well seasoned American oak butts but until he can acquire a suitable bodega he has rented a warehouse in the outskirts of Sanlúcar where he is filling them with wine. To these he will add a further 300 butts of wine which he has stored at his vineyard Las Cañas.

Some of the butts awaiting filling.

Meanwhile the girls at Cuatro Ojos Wines in El Puerto de Santa María have produced another dry Moscatel called La Má. There is a lovely expression that “The Moscatel de Alejandría dies of pain if it can´t see the sea” since it likes to grow on sandy soils in places like Chipiona, where these grapes come from. It is made exclusively for the three Michelin star restaurant Aponiente in El Puerto, an impressive accolade for a tiny artisan bodega established only 3 years ago.

The 4 Ojos girls with their wines. La Má is 2nd from right.

   

Diez Mérito have introduced a smart new label for the Pemartín Sherries:

The Spanish Association of Wine Writers and Journalists (AEPEV) has announced its choice of the best wines and spirits from Spain for 2018. They selected the best from 575 suggested brands in 11 categories and Andalucía was the region with the most awards. From the province of Cádiz the following won prizes:

Noé PX, González Byass

Tintilla de Rota Finca Moncloa, González Byass

Cuatro Palmas, González Byass

Palo Cortado VORS, Bodegas Tradición

Brandy SGR Cardenal Mendoza, Sánchez Romate

Brandy SGR Lepanto PX, González Byass

Fino Añada 2010 16%, González Byass

Appearance
Pale to mid strawy gold with golden reflections.
Nose

Clean, fairly light and very fresh, remarkably so for a wine which has had no refreshment in 8 years, though it is a little fuller. The flor is restrained and not particularly dominant and the aromas are more yeasty and bready yet a slightly more bitter serious note, a faint air of humidity and a trace of bitter almond behind gives it real charm, subtle complexity and style.

Palate

The bitterness of the flor and that almond is a little more pronounced and provides some welcome bite and perfect balance to a wine with fairly moderate acidity, yet it is also very smooth. And it is quite light too with a hint of leanness, and very elegant, dry and polished with a long finish that really makes you hungry. A lovely wine.

Comments

GB have released two vintage Finos in the Vinos Finitos (Finite Wines) range from two contrasting years. The wines come from the same vineyards in the pagos Carrascal and Macharnudo and were made exactly the same way, so the only difference between them is the year, so while they are both excellent they are very different. The chance to see how two vintages differ is rare in Jerez because of the solera system which was designed to iron out year on year differences. 2010 was a year with rainfall two thirds above the average and winds predominantly from the Atlantic, so described as cooler and fresher than normal, giving rise to a longer period of ripening before the hot Levante eventually took over in the second fortnight of August. This wine comes from a single butt sealed by the Consejo for virtually 8 years which provided 700 x 50cl bottles which were filled on 16th August 2018. Producing a Fino de añada of 8 years of age is very difficult in Jerez as the flor cannot be relied on to cover the wine all year round and for so long, so this is quite an achievement.

Price

32.75 euros per 50 cl, Licores Corredera

La Bota de Florpower 84 MMXVI 12%, Equipo Navazos

Appearance
Mid depth strawy gold with brassy-gold highlights.
Nose

Very nice, very Sanlúcar and very individual. Fresh salty sea air and a slightly appley note with a gentle yeasty flor edge which is not particularly pronounced, but there is much more: an almost smoky strawy note, a hint of minerality and a faintly agricultural touch. It is nicely integrated yet you can pick out all sorts of nuances which will likely homogenise further with more time in bottle.

Palate

Fresh, very clean and slightly lean at first but it grows broader as it opens out. There is a lovely chalky slightly saline albariza texture and an attractive balance between that appley Palomino fruit and spot on acidity giving a gentle tang as well as a lovely tension between fruit and salinity which makes it frighteningly moreish.

Comments

This delicious wine is the 2016 and fifth release of this classic vino blanco from Sanlúcar, so dear to the hearts of Equipo Navazos. It is made with Palomino Fino grapes grown in the pago Miraflores La Baja which is powerfully influenced by the Atlantic andthus benefits from the Poniente wind. The must was fermented in 600 litre butts and aged in them for eight months under flor before being transferred to stainless steel tanks in which the flor influence was a bit more restrained and where the wine remained until bottling in June 2018. The idea was to achieve the best possible balance between biological ageing and terroir, and it worked. 3,000 bottles released, sealed with a screwcap.

Price

25.95 De Albariza

Brandy BB Solera 36%, Bodegas Barbadillo

Appearance
Amber going towards mahogany with golden and copper highlights.
Nose

Quite young but not lacking in aroma and the smell of young spirit balances well with Oloroso which is not over intense. There are traces of vanilla, raisin and caramel and faint ones of American oak, and it has a youthful and fairly lively character which might well appeal to younger folk for cocktails.

Palate

It starts fairly crisp then soon opens out quite generously into a smooth classic Brandy de Jerez style but tight and fresh. There is a certain complexity too, with toasted nuts, Oloroso, raisin, caramel and hints of wood and brown sugar all combining to form a very decent whole with good length.

Comments

This is Barbadillo´s entry level Brandy solera, but it is pretty sound stuff. It is a blend of column and pot still spirits with more than half being distilled at low strength for flavour. The blend is aged in butts well seasoned with Oloroso in solera, emerging a year later for bottling. The sugar content is about 15 g/l. some of which comes from a tiny quantity of added PX but the spirit doesn´t appear particularly sweet. All the writing on the lower part of the bottle  is marketing stuff to make it appeal to the youth of today, eg. "Seductive and Rebellious", and tasting notes.

Price

6.90 ex bodega

Amontillado-Fino Carta Blanca, Agustín Blázquez

Appearance

Bright (after decanting), very transparent chestnut-mahogany, not particularly deep but some colour will have been deposited as sediment, copper highlights and very faint trace of green at the rim.
Nose

Elegant and classy, it has that attractive but almost indefinable smell of old wine which has been in bottle for a long time along with lovely nutty notes of lightly toasted almonds and hazelnuts and faint traces of raisin and salted caramel. There are also slight hints of sweetness, from sunned grapes presumably, and old oak, even a faint trace of smoke. It is very much Amontillado but very slightly different from how we know it now, yet lovely nonetheless and very interesting.
Palate

Super elegant and really quite fresh despite possibly 70 years in bottle, and while it is fairly high-toned, almost crisp at first, it becomes very smooth thanks to just a hint of glyceric sweetness and that raisin note though it is almost completely dry at the finish. It has the slightly oily, nutty, caramel character of a younger Amontillado but could have been around 12 years old at bottling. It is fairly light yet intensely flavoured, long and utterly delicious. What a pleasure to taste a style of Sherry which no longer exists - but just might be on its way back?
Comments

This legendary old wine was made from grapes grown in the firm’s Viña Blázquez vineyard in the pago Macharnudo. The grapes were briefly sunned before pressing as was the norm then and fermented to around 13.5 - 14%, so little or no fortification was needed. In fact the label states "Vinos criados al natural". It was aged in soleras at their now disappeared bodega complex on the corner of Calle Paul and Calle Sevilla in Jerez. Since Agustín Blázquez inherited the old firm of Paul & Dastis, the solera could have been very old. This is the Original Carta Blanca, a natural Amontillado with little or no secondary fortification. Annoyingly the label does not specify the strength. The firm was taken over by Domecq in 1973 and operated much as before until around 1997 when it was dissolved, the wines were removed to Domecq and the bodegas demolished to make way for housing. For a while afterwards, Carta Blanca was sold as a straight Fino, a completely different wine in other words. The original was probably the firm’s best known wine and a real example to today’s winemakers. It is very hard to estimate the age of this bottle, which is a classic old style "jerezana". It has a Consejo Regulador seal, so it is post 1933, and another seal with a symbol used in the Franco era, so it is pre 1975. The lack of alcohol declaration and lead capsule would put it back to before the 1970s, so it was probably bottled somewhere between the 1940s and 1960s, and judging by the bottle moulding, nearer the 1940s. The wine had a good fill level and remarkably little sediment and while the driven cork almost inevitably disintegrated, it had kept the wine well sealed and a beautiful aroma emanated from it as soon as it was opened.

Price
Can´t remember, had it for ages