Nearly a week since it was opened and still hard to fault this. If anything it seems to have gained in fruity flavours – making it seem slightly more full bodied – and the salinity seems even more integrated.
Author: sharquillo
Xixarito Oloroso
I am all over these funky labels from Bodegas Baron – love it.
The wine inside is tasty too – a mellow, meaty oloroso with a lot of (dry) burnt brown sugar and not too much acidity or alcoholic heat. Maybe a little bit underpowered, if one was going to be critical, but full of black treacle flavour. Went superbly with a meaty stew.
All in all a really enjoyable glass of wine and one of the more drinkable olorosos around.
Micaela Manzanilla
A lovely light but fruity manzanilla from Bodegas Baron.
It is a pale pale yellow in colour – very much the epitome of sunshine in a glass. It has a very interesting nose too – between fruit and fresh sweet herbs maybe (I had just had a more classic manzanillla and the difference was marked). It is very fine in the mouth and had just enough salinity – in fact less than I expected. The fruit, herbs were not quite as prominent on the tongue but It is excellent and was a really refreshing way to start a meal.
Fino Restaurant
Cracking list of sherries here – sent to me by a mate in London seeking counsel (I recommended the Fernando de Castilla but you won’t go far wrong). Apparently the food was good too so all you Londonites should be forming an orderly queue.
Monteagudo Amontillado at Taberna Verdejo
A lovely mellow amontillado Monteagudo (Delgado Zulueta) seen here with the remnants of white asparagus and smokey mayonaise with which it matched beautifully.
In fact this was only the second of three sherries of a great lunch in one of Madrid’s top sherry venues: Taberna Verdejo.
We started with a Sanchez Romate Fino Perdido and fried piparras, then this amontillado/asparagus combo, then a Gobernador Oloroso with sweetbreads with spring onions and a stew of callos, pata y morro to finish.
Lovely wines, first class food and great pairings if I say so myself. You just can’t beat an old fino with green peppers and asparagus, the amontillado was caramel mellow and could cope with both asparagus and sweetbread and the oloroso with the callos – just a sure fire winner. Curiously, these callos are less spicy and more meaty than the average and the oloroso accompanied them all the way – such a versatile wine.
As an added bonus I bumped into Antonio Barbadillo of Sacristia AB fame.
Vin Jaune
Not sherry but one of its distant cousins and if you enjoy sherries these wines – from Jura or Arbois – are well worth seeking out. This one is wonderful – it is a 1986 Overnoy Savagnin Ouillé from Arbois and it is fantastically light despite being packed with citric and yeasty flavours.
While we are at it – here is another spectacular vin jaune – this time a “vin de paille”. It was amazingly acidic and a perfect wine with a sweet nutty dessert. 
La Bota de Manzanilla 55
Credit where it is due, this effort from Equipo Navazos is top drawer and a great pick me up after a tough day: manzanilla Monday indeed.
It is a pale straw colour and very fragrant (the first time I had it in fact I sniffed it out it from my host’s glass across the room) with aromas of beach grass and the drying sand of the dunes, with a bit of fruity alcohol – a calvados or something – underneath
On the palate it is silky smooth and oily, and it is fresh but full of salty, mineral and dried herb flavours. Delicious stuff.
Goya XL and sushi
A great pairing shout from some great friends. The briney, dry, savoury nature of the manzanilla en rama really pairs well with the soy sauce, spices, seafood and rice of the sushi.
Here we have the Goya manzanilla en rama – a slightly older manzanilla with a bit of body to it (“reposada” rather than pasada).
Three kings
Three superb wines – the Tresillo 1874, the Amontillado Sacristia AB, and the Cuatro Palmas. Looking at this picture I am overcome with guilt at the gluttony of it all. (You may be overcome by the table cloth). Boy was this fun.
I have written about all three wines separately but it was great to taste them – all rare aged amontillados – together. Of the three the Cuatro Palmas was the more elegant, the Sacristia maybe a little bit juicier, but the Tresillo 1874 stood out a little bit: it had just a little bit more of the structure, acidity and all around zing of a really great wine.
What is the score?
The keen eyed amongst the half dozen readers of this blog will have spotted that two of the wines from an epic dinner of last week – the Toneles and the AR – are from the select band of wines blessed with a “score” of 100 points by the famous Mr Parker (or in Spain, the great Mr Gutierrez).
It was a pretty good dinner alright – and also an excellent demonstration of just how difficult this scoring business is – in particular, imho, in the world of sherry.
Because the Toneles was just out of this world – something completely unique and amazing, for which 150 points would not have been too many and 100 points totally failed to tell the story. By comparison, the AR, while still unique and amazing in its own way, was left a little bit exposed.
A lot of this would have been a result of the vast differences between the wines, and maybe it was unfair to compare. Indeed, colleagues (who had kindly contributed some stellar bottles themselves) explained to me that the points scale is not intended to provide for comparisons across genres.
Still, it makes you realize how shockingly hard scoring wines really is. Tasted in a line up of other aged amontillados and palo cortados I am sure the AR would have impressed due to its power and range of flavours, but on its own it was a bit eye watering and didn’t seem balanced at all. On the other hand, how can you hope to make sense of the subtle differences of similar wines other than by tasting flights together?
A number of friends have suggested I start putting scores on here for the wines I taste. Last week confirmed my suspicion that it is not nearly as easy as it seems.
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