I have been meaning to get back to writing on the blog for a few weeks now. It has been a hectic old time in my day job, with precious little opportunity to get out and about, but it is time for the excuses to end, and the posting to recommence, and the occasion is a wine which was at the same time an old friend of the blog and a complete revelation.

Tivo is a unique wine, made by Primitivo Collantes in Chiclana at the Southernmost reaches of el Marco, but what is unique about it is not its origin but its genetics. For this is not just another palomino – this is 100% Uva Rey, a historic varietal that had all but disappeared from the region.

It is a friend of this blog since being included in Encrucijado 2012 – one of the fascinating projects by Ramiro Ibañez – and one of the 119 prephylloxeric varieties written about by scholars of yore. Varieties which, together with the older clones of palomino, did so much for the variety, complexity and beauty of sherry wines in their prephylloxeric, preindustrial heyday.

I rejoiced, and to be honest marvelled, when I discovered that Primitivo had taken the bold move of planting a whole yard of this vine from jurassic park down at Finca Matalian, and I am very glad to say that this bottle was a glorious vindication.

You see Uva Rey is not like palomino in one key respect. While palomino has a fine, thin skin, that allows it to make ethereal, fine white wines that are all white fruit and chamomile, Uva Rey was born in a metaphorical wetsuit thick coat of rubbery armour. If you look at that old post from 2018 you can see it – the skin is impepinable (“uncucumberable”) as the spanish say – you can leave it in the sun for a week and it won’t even start to shrink. T

he result is a grape that gives a lot more body to the wine produced – a kind of more extreme viognier to palomino’s chardonnay- a property that made it a high value component of the old olorosos and which makes the young wine bigger and notably more mineral. In fact I must admit that when I first tried this a few years ago I did not find it as expressive as its brothers and sisters from Matalian – the legendary Socaires – much less its uncle Fossi and brethren. But this one, from the 2019 crop and with a couple of years in the bottle, absolutely sang.

It has that mineral strength, no doubt it – a tyre rubber riesling nose, with freshness and herbs, and then on the palate you have the mineral freshness of the super pure albariza but body and fleshy fruit too – nothing flash – lower in register than a five year old palomino but richer and a touch more oxidation. It got me to thinking that maybe the soil was even too good – this thing on soil with a bit more clay or sand might be an even bigger beast.

But look, it is absolutely cracking. I had it at lunch with two friends and immediately realized it was a mistake to share such a small bottle three ways. If you can find Tivo anywhere I recommend you snap it up and stash it away for as long as you can (in my case not very long) – it will almost certainly get better before it gets worse.