The most magnificent lunch today at Lúa with Bodegas Alvear and a chance to try a “vertical” of the full range of their fantastic new releases. As always I will need some time to write up my notes but it was a class occasion: seven very different bottles, some of them pure magic. The differences … Continue reading Lunch with Bodegas Alvear
Other blogs may post their “best of” at the end of December or beginning of January but that is not how we do things at this address: January 20 works for me. There is a risk of course that a full three weeks into 2018 people might be less tolerant to my bragging and crowing … Continue reading The best of 2017 undertheflor
The last wine from a spectacular lunch with Bodegas Alvear a couple of weeks ago was this fantastic sweet wine. It is a dulce de añada, a sweet wine made from pedro ximenez from the 2014 vintage. Grapes that have spent 7-14 days on the pasera, been pressed through capazos and then aged in tinajas. … Continue reading Dulce de Añada 2014
I could be accused of dragging this out a little but here we go with wine number six of an outrageously good lunch with Bodegas Alvear. And again what a wine it is – an absolutely outstanding, very very old palo cortado. Named, if I am not mistaken, for “Grandad” Diego Alvear, founder of the … Continue reading Palo Cortado Abuelo Diego
To my mind this was the clear star of my recent lunch with Bodegas Alvear and one of the finest amontillados I have come across to date. I agree with the protagonists of Edgar Allan Poe’s great story. For me you cannot beat the amontillado style for flavourful elegance – manzanilla pasadas and older finos … Continue reading Amontillado Solera Fundacional
Am going with the short version of the name here. This was wine number four of an outstanding lunch with Bodegas Alvear last week and had a tough gig, wedged as it was between an outstanding fino (the Fino Capataz Solera de la Familia) and a quite sensational amontillado (Amontillado Solera Fundacional). Said to have … Continue reading Criadera /A
The second wine from my epic lunch with Alvear last week was the Fino CB, a six year old fino, once again from 100% pedro ximenez, and from wine that did not require fortification. Am realizing that it is a house that venerates its former capatazes and here is another example: it is apparently named … Continue reading Fino CB
Not the first dry white pedro ximenez wine I have had but there have not been many. This was the first wine of a quite fantastic lunch with Javier Noval of Alvear and in the heat of Madrid was a top start. I am convinced that, just like Jerez and its creams and mediums, the … Continue reading Marques de la Sierra
Although slightly out of order, after yesterday’s terrific lunch in Lua and after looking back at the archive this morning I couldn’t resist writing up my note of this top, top wine. (Not that the notes were much good. Yesterday’s lunch was one of those occasions when the conversation flowed even more emphatically than the wines, and between gulps … Continue reading Fino Capataz Solera de la Casa
