My second dip at this fascinating wine – this time in Wine Attack, a funky new natural wine winebar. It is a viura from La Rioja which has been in a bota with flor since 2015. I am occasionally criticized for only tasting hyper-specialized wines with very limited releases but this is an exception: it is an experiment at this stage and isn’t on sale anywhere.

The first saca was January 2016 – and I happened upon a bottle last June in Reserva y Cata. This second saca was from January this year and while still very young it seemed to have a bit more oxidation than further flor effects. A very straightforward profile and a very pleasant drop.

Not big by any means – and no comparison to the true flor wines from the South – but a nice nose of butterscotch tending to wood glue, and more of that slightly toffee flavour on the palate. Compact in the extreme – a short straight blob of flavour – and not very expressive, but quite a long and pleasant, only very slightly saline aftertaste.

Interesting stuff – looking forward to next year’s saca already.