The original UBE, 100% palomino from the Las Vegas vineyard in Carrascal de Sanlucar, and the third vintage of it that I know of after 2013 and 2014. Not just any palomino of course – three old varietals – that grow on the looser, antehojuela albarizas of a pago with a strong Atlantic influence.
It all adds up to a wine that is fresh and vertical – that barely touches the side of the nose, mouth and throat. The aromas and flavours are of white fruit and white flowers – the chamomile of manzanilla fame – which are fresh on the nose and at the start of the palate but then turn jammy and intense, jammy flavours that the mouth watering salinity stretch out and out – for all its vertical profile it is incredibly long. Long enough for me to finish the glass, write this paragraph, and fetch the bottle from the far corner of the house while still tasting it.
And as the wine is open it grows in flavour and aromas – the white flowers become more and more herbally aromatic, and the jammy fruit becomes more stewy, but in a wine that is all lightness, freshness and salinity.
The levity can be measured in degrees – only 12.5% – but the freshness and salinity are products of the variety and a clue as to what made the wines of the region world famous: the ability to concentrate flavour in freshness. At a time in history when wines were white and prized for their concentration, the fine profile of palomino must have been a fresh breeze.
And it is of course a wine made by Ramiro Ibañez, a special winemaker who has done as much as anyone to revive the fortunes of this most historic of wine regions, by projects demonstrating the importance of terroir and vintage, through publications, appearances and media, but most importantly through the pure expression of terroir in wines like this one.
His very good health, and time for another bottle …
It has taken a long time to write this post – mainly due to eight weeks or so of shoulder knack and related antiobiotic gah – but also because it was just one of those events that beggar belief and stretch my ability to put words of the same level on the page.
It was, in short, an unforgettable dinner organized in the vineyards of Macharnudo themselves by the irreverent genius behind Tohqa – Edu and Juanito Perez – and headlined by Willy Perez (no relation) – but the full cast read like a sherry version of a Hollywood epic: Luis Perez Sr (Bodegas Luis Perez and famously of Domecq), Eduardo Ojeda (Valdespino and Equipo Navazos), Salvador Real (Fundador), Carlos del Rio (Gonzalez Byass and Finca Corrales), Peter Sisseck (Finca Corrales, Pingus and others), Ramiro Ibañez (with your man Willy, De la Riva) and last but not least the great Juancho Asenjo.
Between them they represented all the bodegas currently making wine on Macharnudo – and some of the great names of the past too – and all in all I feel very lucky to have grabbed a ticket.
We started up at the Castillo de Macharnudo – with a lovely glass of Harvey’s Fino, which I identified blind (one of the great blind tasting successes of recent years, since the only clues were the fact we were stood at their most emblematic vineyard, and I had been handed the glass by the winemaker.) A really nice aromatic fino to start, and from there we span over to the Angel – and Macharnudo’s highest point – for a couple of really special bottles.
We stood at the top of that hill, gazing at the views of flourishing palomino on white soils all around us and none other then Eduardo Ojeda produced a couple of special bottles of Inocente. There was a 2009 and a 2015 and they were a vivid demonstration of the two key facets of that wine – probably Macharnudo’s best known ambassador – one explosively aromatic and the other grooved and mineral. Juices properly flowing now.
From there we meandered down and took a look at some more famous vineyards, before heading out to a Lagar that Edu and Juanito had rigged up as a kind of miraculous temporary Tohqa for the night.
It was time for some of Macharnudo’s more modern ambassadors and they were sensational. La Escribana, Navazos Niepoort, De la Riva and even the new single vineyard fino from Peter Sisseck – with only a couple of years of criadera and solera. After the stately old finos these were fresh, fruitful, and delicious like fruit juices, but if anything the chalk was even more present, drying the mouth and balancing, bedding down the white fruit and mountainside flowers. Really superb chance to drink a few of these wines together.
And of course a chance to discuss and learn from these greats. Willy lead the charge with some quality maps, facts and infographics, charting the history from Macharnudo’s origins as the “bare hill” where nothing would grow to the prices of the great wines down the centuries and to the orientations and characteristics of the famous old vineyards we had visited. It was a superb tribute to a special plot of earth that deserves to be as famous as any in the world of wine.
And while all this took place dishes started appearing from this tiny little shack, with no mains electricity and minimal gear, and such dishes too.
If you know Tohqa in Puerto de Santa Maria you won’t need me to tell you how good it was, but even then you would have been surprised at the high level of technical difficulty in preparation and presentation – your man was working with little more than a lantern and a camping stove! Really superb skills, a set of dishes that worked perfectly together and flavours that perfectly matched the setting and the wines.
And as the courses came and went the wines only became more magnificent, as we dived deep into the oxidative wines considered Macharnudo’s crowning glories – you can see the bottles above but I still can’t quite believe them. Some stellar old wines – famous names and labels that more than lived up to their reputations. I won’t attempt to describe them: I am just not capable.
Overhead, a satellite came crashing down through the atmosphere and lit up the sky like a great shooting star. It felt like a premonition, and soon we too had to head back to earth after a night on the moon and under the stars. Over far too soon but magic doesn’t nearly cover it.
This is just a monster of a wine – so potent, savoury and saline.
It is made by Ramiro Ibañez from 100% palomino fino grown on barajuela albarizas in Finca la Charanga, Sanlucar. It has a marked “river influence” – relative concentration compared to the much fresher “atlantic” influenced wines from Miraflores and Atalaya, in the argot this is a much more horizontal wine.
You can see the colour – slightly dark gold, telling any observant quaffer that this is more than the average quaff, and if they didn’t notice that the nose is unmistakable: stewed apples and diesel, like a savoury riesling. But on the palate, oh my word, it is a beast. Solid block of flavour that just takes over the front of the tongue and mouth – savoury, savoury, and savoury, a hot salty finish on the tongue and then some afters – with those jammy stewed apples coming through.
Really outstanding, superb wine, but a wine that is unique to the South of Spain. It is the opposite of fruity – not dry, but savoury – and it has bite and concentration. Really among the best I can remember and I cannot believe I just opened the last one because it also has legs.
It is Saint George’s day in Spain, the patron of the old Kingdom of Aragon, whose day is traditionally celebrated here with the giving of books and roses, and I sincerely hope that some lucky people out there have received a copy of this excellent addition to the library by none other than Cesar Saldaña, President of the Consejo Regulador (and all around good guy).
It was through Cesar that I first became seriously interested in these wines and since then my debt to him has only grown. He is a good friend and a fellow “Generoso”, so I cannot claim that this post is entirely impartial.
But for all that Cesar is a good friend and great company, the man knows as much about Jerez as almost anyone I know and for years, is truly passionate about it in a way that fills casual afficionados like myself with envy, and has been teaching the world of Jerez to sommeliers and wine lovers on the “Sherry Masters” of which he has been a driving force. This book is the fruit of all that knowledge, passion, and communication and as you might expect is full of information, inspiration and insight as a result.
Cesar himself would be far too modest to claim that this is “the” book about the wines of Jerez – at the presentation this week he reckoned that there were about 50 other “essential” books that everyone should read – but I can tell you that this would be a great place to start. And the good news is that it is only available in Spanish, giving all you anglophone types an excellent excuse to learn!
Get your copy direct from the editors here. And Happy Saint George’s Day!
A belated thanks to the crew at Lustau who very generously included me in the celebration of their 125th anniversary by sending me this extremely handsome boxed set of special bottlings.
As with their 3 en rama it is a selection that celebrates their presence in all three of the major centres of el Marco – Papirussa manzanilla pasada from Sanlucar, Amontillado Solera del Castillo from el Puerto de Santa Maria and the 1996 Vintage Sherry from Jerez itself. And they are three cracking wines too.
This is the first time I taste the manzanilla pasada from Papirussa and it is a very nice drop indeed. Whereas Papirussa is a bright fresh apple on the nose, here the apples are older and packed in straw, and on the palate too it is a more serious mouthful. It is punchy and zingy, saline and mouth watering, with more soft apples in the flavours that feed to a long saline burn. A really tidy, punchy little wine all round.
And this post was originally only going to describe the manzanilla pasada but I couldn’t resist opening the amontillado. I love the Lustau wines from El Puerto and this is no exception. From the solera in the Castillo de San Marcos bodega this has had four years of biological action, then 25 years of oxidation, 17 of them static.
If it sounds like it is going to be a gem I am glad not to disappoint. Sweet caramel, church bench and sawdust on the nose, when you breathe in deeply a lovely old brandy – a top class nostrilful. It is just as full of meaning on and about the tongue too – again zingy, gum stinging acidity and rich flavours – more of that brandy sensation that fades to sawdust that fills the mouth and up into the nasal channels. A really pronounced barrel effect in fact.
And that left the vintage sherry and, well, it would be rude not to, no?
This is frankly wonderful, I love it. From a late harvested vintage no less than 25 years ago this had its fermentation halted early and the result is a fine sweet palomino wine that has spent the intervening period in oloroso butts. I
It was time well spent too. This has just a stunning nose of Christmas cake while baking – fruits, nuts, spices and booze, maybe a touch of cedar cigar box – and then on the sip (or, let’s be honest, gulp) you get all of that again in a lovely velvety package, with acidity that balances the sweetness and a sticky finish that keeps the party going for ages and ages until fading a final note of cigar at the end. Really superb stuff.
All in all a fantastic box set and a wonderful thing to receive. Many thanks to Lustau once again and many happy returns!
It has been a great week for the many fans of the traditional wines of Southern Andalucía: in addition to International Sherry Week, which goes from strength to strength, there was yet another edition of la Copa de Jerez and once again the DO took advantage of the opportunity not only to celebrate but more importantly to debate the future of the region and its wines.
It was an excellent event all round and if, like me, you weren’t able to get down there, you can watch videos of every minute (in Spanish) on the DO’s youtube channel, vinosdejereztv.
But one panel stood out for this blogger: “Panel 10, new times, new rules II”. On it Cesar Saldanha, Director of the DO, lead a quite excellent debate on the new rules agreed for the region. Those new rules are undeniably welcome and show progress on a number of fronts: a recognition that wines of the recquisite strength need not be fortified, improvements in the recognition of vintage specific wines, a more detailed classification of categories of wines such as manzanilla pasada and fino viejo and rules on the use of terms such as “en rama”.
But neither is there any doubt as to the major disappointment, which is that the excellent white wines of the region will remain outside the DO, and that became from the outset the focus of the discussion between three leading lights of the “new Jerez”: Willy Perez, Paola Medina and Armando Guerra. (In fact rather than “discussion” it might be more accurate to call it a chorus since all three seemed agreed of the value of white wines to the region.)
As so often the arguments were best articulated by Willy Perez. He set out three points: the past, the present and the future.
As to the past, Willy pointed out that in the recent past (last 200 years or so) the “vinos de pasto” were listed on the price lists of all the major houses – and not at the bottom of those lists either. White wines may be fashionable but they are not a mere passing fashion.
It is an excellent point and if anything it struck me that Willy didn’t go far enough: we too easily lose sight of the fact that in the two thousand or more years of the history of the region white wines have always been present, while solera wines (for want of a better term) are a comparatively recent innovation.
As to the present, the argument is simple: the quality and qualities of the white wines being produced cannot be doubted. And while Willy didn’t want to labour the point, for me he stopped short again, because I strongly believe that the white wines being produced in the region are among the finest being produced anywhere: I have no hesitation on sharing them with visitors or taking them with me all over the world and I am yet to find anyone who disagrees. The region simply could not wish for better ambassadors than these wines.
And as to the future, Willy’s argument was again direct: for the region to have a future it needs new blood, new winemakers and innovation, innovation that is incomparably more viable in the production of white wines. Put simply, the investment and time needed to establish a solera is a massive barrier to entry into the sector that only a select few could afford to undertake.
Again, I might have gone even further, particularly in response to some of the round tables that had gone before, in which it was suggested that the future of the region lay in greater classification and barrel selection, ever older, more extreme wines and “discoveries” of long last botas. There is no doubt that recent fans of these wines have lived in a fortunate time, with so many priceless old wines unsold in cellars, waiting to be discovered and bottled for our delight. But we must not forget that our good fortune is a tragedy for the makers of those wines. Those barrels are in those cellars in many cases because there was no market for them, and the legendary names that we all revere are part of history because their owners went to the wall. Put simply, for the region to thrive it needs to make and sell wines: it cannot hope to keep “finding” them.
But it is in this last point that it becomes clear why white wines didn’t make the cut: it simply isn’t in the interest of the wineries making the rules. It is a fact of life that the Consejo Regulador is made up of the region’s largest wineries, all of whom have made those massive investments in soleras and none of whom have an interest in sharing their “brand” with the whippersnappers producing vinos de pasto.
And while Willy’s position was predictable enough (as one of the aforementioned whippersnappers) it was perhaps more surprising that Paola and Armando seemed to agree. Paola (a whippersnapper herself to be fair) made very clear that for her the “identity” of sherry wines came from their organoleptic qualities and that consumers and wineries were increasingly attuned to and interested in the qualities of different vineyards – and even Armando agreed that the region needed to find the courage to diversify, noting that the big wineries too were innovating in just the same way.
But it was interesting to see how the three contributions differed: and in particular while Willy set the stage and Armando cleared up, the key question seemed to me to be the one posed to Paola, as to where the “identity” of the wines of the region lay.
Because here I really feel that the region has, in recent years (by which I mean the last century and a half) confused “identity” with “brand”. It has fought so hard to sell its wines by reference to its soleras that it seems to have forgotten that soleras, oxidative ageing, even biological ageing, are not unique to the region. Other regions can and do employ the same techniques with sometimes spectacular results. What made Jerez unique for centuries were the qualities of the wines it produced – whether they went into those soleras or not – and recent history shows that even the greatest soleras cannot compensate for the loss of quality of the wines that go in.
If there is a consolation it is in the direction of travel. As Willy pointed out, the region has already come a long way, Paola noted that consumers have too, and Armando recognized that even the biggest wineries were alive to the need to produce and innovate with white wines. There is consolation also in the thought that on the increasingly competitive worldwide stage the white wines of the region can be found everywhere from Finland to New York and in every publication you can shake a stick at.
But it nevertheless feels like a lost opportunity for the region: an opportunity to celebrate the past, to promote the great wines of the present and to embrace the new winemakers of the future.
The fruitiest saltiest white wine you will ever try, and one of the jammiest from Sanlucar. This wine has a very special place in the affections of this blog and blogger for personal reasons but it is a very special wine in its own right.
It is a blend of palomino, perruno and uva rey, three of the many originally autoctonous varieties of the region, whose presence side by side in the same vineyards were the original reason for the variety of wines that came out the other end.
In this one the oxidative inclination of the uva rey and the jammy perruno, together with a decent spell of flor and oxidation, make this wine, which would have been a very nice, bota fermented palomino, into something altogether different and unique.
Bottled after 20 months or so, the four years in the bottle have suited this down to the ground – it has grown in every direction and is now a massive wine – even a massive cucumber as they say down there. A beautiful rich colour and lovely on the nose – ripe melon and baked fruit -, then a palate and finish that manages to be jammy, salty, and fresh.
This post has only one connection with the traditional wines of Southern Andalucía: it is about wine, and top class wines at that. Because a couple of weeks ago I was lucky enough to be invited to taste the 2020 vintage of single vineyard wines of Artadi in Laguardia and they were exceptional, as were the people involved.
It started with a reception at Las Colonias in Laguardia – a superb, imposing building – at which there were more than a few friends, before a round table discussion between four top drawer speakers. First was Carlos Lopez de Lacalle, taking the baton from his illustrious father and setting up the day with a warm welcome and the introduction of a well chosen theme: “Origen: Paisajes y Paisanajes” (Origin, landscapes and “peoplescapes”), a title drawing together two of the dimensions of great wines: the places they are made and the people that make them.
First to speak to the topic was Aitor Arregui of Elkano. I have written before on here about the restaurants this man is behind (Elkano and Cataria) their exceptional understanding – and communication – of the terroir of the sea, and how much that knowledge and communication contributed to what were two of the best meals of a life featuring quite a few good ones. Well on Monday there was more of the same – simply and clearly communicated, and with an emotion that set the tone for the day. There was also a first glimpse of the bonds of friendship and family that are one of the other abiding memories of the day. A superb start.
His key point was that landscape and time defined the produce of Getaria, near the southernmost extent of the bay of Biscay, but the way that that produce had been interpreted by the local population had defined a cuisine and culture – we fish it, we grill it – (sounds simple but try it) that in turn attuned the population to the patterns of the currents and life cycles of the animals. By stripping away all artifice the culture is one that demands an understanding of the culinary qualities and seasons of the animals in a kind of virtuous spiral, redefining what can be done with a grill one splash of “Lourdes water” at a time.
He was followed by Ramiro Ibañez, beloved of this parish, who picked up the same theme and took it in a different direction from the opposite end of the Peninsula. Ramiro spoke to how the differences in terrain and wine making possibilities of Sanlucar and Jerez had over the centuries shaped first the wines, then the population and their tastes, spurring further specialization not only in wine but in cuisine and again a virtuous circle that had created great diversity in a small area. He also picked up on the social and industrial changes that threatened to break that virtuous circle, as industrialization and 18th century globalization offered winemakers markets and wine drinkers choices, and lead to a blurring and forgetting of that diversity. (In fact he actually started there – even if I remembered it in reverse.)
Ramiro in turn was followed by Rodrigo Gonzalez, director of wine for the Dani Garcia group who picked up what looked like a nasty hospital pass and to be fair he ran on with aplomb. He recognized too the same issues of globalization and industrialization that Ramiro had picked up but rather than denying the market he took their themes of people and places and tied them to the stories of wine that resonate with customers in restaurants and stores. When the client can come from anywhere in a shifting world, and can get their DRC on almost anywhere they go, a wine shaped by a place and a people is an anchor – and a wine and a cuisine borne of the same culture is an anchor upon anchor, a link between the ephemeral pleasure of a glass of wine, a dish. and the centuries, millenia, and more. It was a beautiful way to tie up one of the best round tables I have witnessed at a wine event.
That round table gave way to a debate about the same concerns – how changes in society were challenging the succession of traditional family businesses and prising the most precious real estate from their historic owners, in Rioja and elsewhere. Pretty gloomy stuff, but probably the same debate has been repeated for the last 100 years and the world has not come to an end just yet. More optimistically, the very presence of Ramiro was a reminder that however far a wine region can fall from its tree, consumers will seek out wines that reflect the place and the culture when possible.
Fascinating stuff but the time tends to drag on when you have four empty wine glasses in front of you. Fortunately, we didn’t have to wait much longer for the bride and groom and before we knew it the glasses were no longer empty. After a few words on the – pretty challenging – climate conditions and evolution of the vineyards during the 2019-20 growing season it was time to taste the 2020 single vineyard wines.
The tasting had a neat structure because we tasted the wines, more or less, in order of the depth of navigable soil in the vineyards, as captured by a set of “calicatas” – from 60cm to over 2m tall. (You like terroir? Look at those tubes!) This frankly is right up my street – an attempt to understand the wines in the context of the soils, and opens up a dimension I look forward to exploring further. And neither was it excessively nerdy – Juan Carlos Lopez de Lacalle disarmingly recognized that they were exploring and trying to understand the “what” but still didn’t know “why”.
First up were Cuerdamayor and Santa Cecilia – two old vineyards, planted in the 20s and 30s but with only 55 and 60 cm of topsoil. Surface feeding old vines you might call them. And the contrasts started right away: while Cuerdamayor had a bright, floral and fruity nose and a zesty, lively acidity, Santa Cecilia was altogether more mineral, more serious, a touch of the skin of barbecued peppers. Both extremely drinkable but with distinct personalities.
The second flight were three classy wines: La Laguna, San Lazaro, and Quintanilla. Vineyards planted in 1920, 1956 and 1951, respectively, with 105, 145 and 175 cm of topsoil available. Again this flight showed personalities that were different between each other and from the earlier flight. La Laguna was all blackcurrant fruit gums and even a touch of honey on the nose, and then a surprisingly saline and savoury palate. San Lazaro, by contrast was like a punnet of fresh black fruit, or even a blackberry bush on the nose, and had that same freshness and a leafy acidity on the palate. Quintanilla was a further step in that direction, with blackberry jam on the nose and then a palate with soft tannins and a hint of apple seed, nice profile that was full of flavour and compact.
These, by the way, are from my notes, but I wish I had taken better note of what had been said by Juan Carlos and Carlos as they presented the wines because their thoughts and angles on the art of wine tasting and description were fascinating. I tend to think of wines in shapes and textures, but Juan Carlos seems to see them like a combination of architectural blue prints and poetry (and don’t worry, no poetry was recited). Carlos, on the other hand had a more direct-to-the-emotion approach, comparing wines to the feeling of a surfboard on a wave amongst other things.
Anyway the third flight had four wines: Terreras (1960, 1970 and 1990 – up to 2m), La Hoya (1965, 105 cm), la Poza de Ballesteros (1960, 115cm) and San Martin (Laguardia, 1930, 185cm). As you have probably guessed by now, four distict personalities. Terreras is deep ribena on the nose and on the palate, black fruit from start to finish, long, acidic, and with a lovely fine shape to it – fruit all the way to the end, but with tannins that give it a graphite, mineral quality. La Hoya by comparison was light and vivacious, with structure but spark. This was a wine where Juan Carlos’s comment really struck home – he described it as having “living” room, space between lines – and I can understand it – the lightness, brightness of the edge of the profile and the softness of the centre. Very nice. That was followed by la Poza de Ballesteros, again a delightful combination of lightness and meatiness, quieter than La Hoya but meatier too, a very nice balance to it, and then by San Martin, which for me was something else, with a funkier nose, and a richness of palate and texture, chocolatey complexity that I loved. At the time San Martin was my wine of the day, with just an extra dimension that the others did not have – can’t wait to see it all grown up in a couple of years.
The final flight was lead out by Valdegines (Laguardia, 1989 and 1992, 2m), then El Carretil, (Lagurdia, 1930, 1975 and 1988, 2m) and, finally, El Pison, the family vineyard, planted in 1945 on a site in Laguardia with soils of at least 1,50 (and possibly endless). Yet more contrasts. Valdegines was aptly described as a creature of an inhabited mountainside, fruit and leaf but hints or malted barley and stew on the palate and fruit on the finish, with perhaps an outermost covering of charcoal tannins. For a wine from such young vines a real cracker. El Carretil is really a little gem. On the nose it is burgundy-like, has that tension like the strings of a tennis racquet and red fruit, even liquorice. Then on the palate you get a lovely tight profile with those same red fruit flavours, beautiful wine. And el Pisón is a big gem, a massive cucumber as the boys round here would say. Less brightness and tension on the nose than El Carretil and fruit that is darker, but a profile that could have been carved by Bernini, silky and elegant, and not jammy but full – fruit in every atom, and there, long and soft all the way through a long finish.
A really outstanding tasting, superb wines and an unforgettable opportunity to taste 12 wines from different vines together on an equal footing. The sort of tasting that makes me painfully aware of my shortcomings as a taster and writer, even when I take notes and they survive the day.
And there was plenty left for them to survive because the festival didn’t finish there. After a brief stretch of the legs in the sunshine we were back for lunch at the hands of Aitor and his crew from Elkano and it was, again, thrillingly memorable, with antxoa, txitxarro, lobstr, kokotxas (on the grill and pil pil), potxa a lo pelayo, the world famous rodaballo (turbot) and a dessert that, if it isn’t famous yet, really ought to be.
It was a lunch that on another day would have been the highlight of the year, and again it was washed down with more outstanding Artadi wines: Izar Leku 2017, the fourth generation of their really excellent sparkling txacoli, a superb Viñas de Gain Blanco 2014 that stands comparison with many much more famous Rioja whites, and then four reds that were a happy reminder of what the years would bring the wines of the morning: Viñas de Gain 2011, La Poza de Ballesteros 2012, Grandes Añadas 2000, and El Pisón 2004. You don’t need me to tell you that those last three, in particular, are absolutely world class, but by this stage of proceedings my note taking had dwindled from note taking to non-existent, and as the afternoon wore on and bottles came and went, the dancing and singing started and my memory becomes increasingly cloudy.
Not enough to obscure the memory of a wonderful, unforgettable day, and it would be incomplete and unfair too to sign off without mentioning the warmth and fun of the company from start to pretty late finish. The bonds of friendship and family were evident throughout the day and it was a pleasure and a privilege to be a part of it.
Larga vida y muchas gracias a Artadi, Elkano, sus paisajes y paisanajes!
Of the many joys that this blog has brought me undoubtedly the greatest has been the possibility of trying things that otherwise I would not. I have been spoilt by sommeliers, invited to events, been able to visit wineries and meet winemakers, and generally been very fortunate indeed. And there was a new example this week as a colleague from the firm where I work shared something really unique with me.
His family own a winery, Bodegas Otero. up in Benavente, one of five wineries in one of Spain’s least famous DOs, where they make some very enjoyable reds and whites from prieto picudo and verdejo. Unusually for this blog, we are not talking a new winery: they were founded in 1906. Also unusually for this blog, the wine was not a new one either, quite the contrary.
The bodega has the typical “sala de visitas”, with old barrels on every wall, many of them signed for family members, recently decided to take stock of the wine in those barrels, and what they have found is quite extraordinary.
The barrels were filled with verdejo in the 1980s and then they, and their contents, literally became part of the furniture. The angels took more than their share and the barrels became a little less full, allowing a veil of flor to form for a few years before a decision was taken to fortify around 15 years ago, since when they were left to grow old as gracefully as possible. Until last year, when the barrels were emptied into two deposits, from which a few bottles – no more than tasting samples – have been produced.
And this is where my luck comes in because I was fortunate enough to be given a couple of those bottles and asked if I thought it was worth bottling the rest. Even before I opened them I was intrigued – who wouldn’t be – and I couldn’t think of a better place to do so than Angelita, with its cooking based on the produce of the same zamoran fields.
And the wines didn’t let anybody down – a lovely golden colour, clear as a bell, and aromatic, with barrel, sawdust, wax and brandy there but also old old apple. On the palate too: nice acidity, mellow flavours, not at all heavy on the palate despite their 19 degrees and a long, mouthwatering finish with that same aromatic profile. The two wines – we had a bottle from each deposit – were also full of character. One finer, all barrel and mellow, and the other brasher, with more volatile acidity and the juicier, spirity profile and nose that that brings.
I was impressed enough, indeed, to want to compare them with some of the many sherry wines on excellent list and they really stood their ground admirably – finer and maybe less potent on the palate due to their lack of solera, but no less aromatic and flavorful and maybe even more elegant.
So a lovely discovery all told, no doubt at all that these need bottling – in fact they will be a couple of wines that will be well worth hunting out when they are finally available (and I am glad to say you should be able to find them in Angelita). My sincere congratulations to Bodegas Otero and my thanks to them for sharing.
A couple of years ago they passed me a draft of a first section of a book intended to tell the true history of the wines of Jerez and Sanlucar. It was pretty dense: knowledge and enthusiasm per square inch off the chart, and a story that I had never heard before.
And they started with an explanation of how these wines used to be called. Palma, Raya, and everything in between. It was pretty nerdy – wine names you had never seen and a narrative coming from a whole new direction. But it rang true. Every wine lover and wine maker – even this wine bluffer – knew it to be true the moment that they read it. At that time it read like a theory in need of practice. But now you can experience the practice, and you can really appreciate the power in the theory.
This wine is the successor to a wine called oloroso. My guess is that it no longer can be called oloroso, because it was, like its sibling the palma cortada, cut off in its prime.
If it cannot be called an oloroso it is a mistake, because it might not be as aromatic as some but it is an almost divine representation of the effect of oxidation. The first time that I tried Oloroso la Barajuela, a few years ago now, I was mystified – I have had more oxidated burgundies (quite often). But then I was looking for more oxidation, more concentration, and I overlooked the wonderful way the palomino frame carries the oxidation.
And just as the flor can be cynically used to produce effects rather than wines, – carve wines too fine, produce too much haybale and too much sea air at the expense of too much fruit – oxidation can be thought of as just a tool for producing caramel, toffee, black toffee and burnt toffee, when in reality it can be a way of turning white fruit, quite literally, gold.
I mean it stands to reason that olorosos didn’t just start leaping from the barrel at 12 years old. There must have been a moment when people started noticing how nice these wines were with a bit of oxygen – before we all started overdoing it.
And that is what we have here, in this white wine from the greatest vineyard in Jerez. And it is what we are beginning to see too in its counterpart from Sanlucar, Agostado. Both of them are white wines so solid on their frame that that oxidation is not a defect but a burnish, a polish.
And those words – palma, raya, cortado – they are on bottle labels, wine lists and, hopefully, in publications, and blog posts, and rankings. And the word will spread.
And who knows? We may one day see the second section of the book even …
undertheflor.com 