I get a bit of stick for the number of wines on this blog that have never been under the proverbial flor, most often when I write about unfortified white wines (for some reason noone raises a sniff about olorosos and palo cortados – probably because they have all had some biological ageing but that is another story altogether). Fortunately this problem is avoided here because this little gem, another small production, high quality wine of 100% palomino from this jolly little operation in Puerto de Santa Maria, has indeed had a modest stay under the veil, a stay which has added considerably to its charm.

100% palomino from the albariza of Pago Balbaina, this is given a little bit of sunshine (asoleo), fermented in bota and then spends around two years in the bota, with some or all of that time under a veil of flor. The bottle is little, and there aren’t many of them available but they are worth looking out for (they had at least a couple of bottles in Zalamero Taberna last time I checked).

In style this is one of these in between wines – a little bit of flor but by no means a fino – that I really believe are a winning combination. It preserves the fruit – here sweet apple pie – but has just a touch of almond and the fine, saline, punchy and above all fresh quality that is the gift of the albariza and the flor. And the aromatics, too: has a really lovely nose of apple and chamomile, like one of those fruity teas you see around and really similar to the nose of some jura wines.

Lovely stuff, really a great little wine.