One from the backlog, a nice tasty en rama fino this – nearly a year in the bottle and had gained in colour and maybe a little touch of character. Big hay barn nose, salty air, bakery aromas and roast apples. Fresh and sharp but had a savoury character to it like burnt cheese on a pan or brown crusty bread. Tasty stuff.
A fringe benefit of having this blog is that good friends sometimes offload their unwanted sherries in my direction and this here is the product of just such an act of charity/disposal.
I certainly won’t be giving it away – it is a lovely wine. Bottled in July 2015 this was once a famous old Domecq solera – now, I believe, under the Harveys label – and it has a bit of class about it. Also has a lot of macharnudo in it unless I am mistaken. Smooth and not excessive in any direction but aromatic on the nose and full in flavour with almonds, yeast, spices and salty mineral heat.
Very nice indeed. Bring out your unwanted sherries people!
There is a growing fashion in Spain for top restaurants and wine bars to have their own bottlings of wines and to be honest I am not sure how I feel about it. On the one hand if it generates interest – and I can see that in some cases it does – and if the restaurants are good then I can see it could have a positive effect. On the other hand, so many “special” bottlings floating around can give the impression that the “normal” stuff is a bit less special. Also you have to admit that the places we are talking about tend to have done their bit for the cause so I guess there are more pluses overall.
Anyway pardon the soliloquy but this here is one of the guest bottlings of which I speak. This is a special selection of Juan Piñero’s classic manzanilla, la Maruja, which has been bottled on this occasion for legendary San Sebastian wine bar and sherry temple Essencia. To give it an additional level of abstraction, they in turn very generously supplied a few bottles to Madrid’s very own Angelita, where I had it, so you could say here I am drinking something doubly exclusive.
More importantly, it is a very nice way to start what will almost certainly turn into a pretty long lunch (they tend to here). Fresh, punchy, seaside air and esparto grass on the nose and a sharp, fresh and slippy but full flavoured mouthful to match. Really gets the juices flowing in every sense of the word.
Lucerita, by the way, means something along the lines of “little star” and as a name for this little gem it couldn’t be more apt.
This was one of the absolute highlights of an unforgettable Wednesday night at Taberna Palo Cortado. Two absolutely exceptional wines, from the same vineyard, by the same hand and in the same style but different years, and what a difference a year makes.
First, both have a superb balance of concentrated white fruit and honeysuckle top and savoury bottom but the 2014 (which as far as I know was not an exceptionally warm summer) seems to have even more mass behind it than the 2013 did – a really epic punch of flavour.
Second, while the 2014 still has a fruitful richness to it, the additional year under flor seems to have pushed the 2013 over the boundary into the sharper, dryer, more elegant world of the fino. It is still an exceptionally full bodied fino by today’s standards, but next to it’s little brother it comes across as a touch reserved.
I am trying to be balanced here but I obviously like the 2014 best. They are both great wines though, and the kind of wine that any wine lover would enjoy.
A very special night last night in Taberna Palo Cortado. First, it was the final tasting in the Taberna in its current location, and a chance to say goodbye to a little place that in just two years has been the scene of a lot of really fun nights. (Worry not, they will be back – more news soon.) Second, it was a rare chance to listen to Willy Perez and a very rare chance to taste some of the most exciting and sought after wines in Spain, his Barajuela project.
It wasn’t all about the Barajuelas. One of the things that sets Willy and his family apart is that they are winemakers across the whole spectrum, with a range of reds based around tintilla de rota (include El Triangulo and the classy Tintilla 2013), a new and frankly extremely impressive palomino white wine (el Muelle de Olaso 2016) and even a buzzy, full power modern rosé. We were able to taste all of them and fascinating it was too: particularly the comparison between two tintillas.
But the stars of the show were the Barajuelas. This year’s second saca of the 2013 Fino, a first look at the 2014 Fino, a happy reunion with the absolutely sensational 2013 Oloroso and also a glass of the Raya 2015. Four really top wines and awesome to try them side by side: the comparison between the two finos was stunning and I enjoyed the Raya much more in the company of its brethren. The oloroso in particular showed beautifully – worth the entrance money alone and seeing the glass empty brought a tear to the old eye.
Or rather the star was Willy himself. A really good bloke and obviously highly talented chap whose only faults as far as I can see are his excessive height and unnecessarily luxurious barnet. It was frankly amazing how much knowledge he dropped on us – my notebook is once again full of notes I will never have the time to write up.
All in all a night that will live long in the memory, even if your correspondent, after a brave, silent, night-long battle against the flu, succumbed shortly after midnight and almost certainly missed an even better afterparty …
Salon season is in full swing in Madrid and one of the best events of the year was last night at the Fundacion Pons. It was the 8th edition of Vinoteca Tierra’s annual tasting of the new catalogue and there were some really cracking wines on show.
The sherry action was in the courtyard. Most exciting new release for this blog was a sneak preview of the Pandorga 2016 by Cota 45. It was absolute nectar and only one of two new wines by Ramiro Ibañez, who also brought the incredibly horizontal UBE Maina, said to be very nearly ready for bottling, plus bonus bottles of the Carrascal and Miraflores and even an Encrucijado.
Ramiro was, appropriately enough, sharing a table with his mucker Primitivo Collantes and while Primitivo didn’t bring anything new, with wines like the Arroyuelo Fino En Rama and Fossi neither does he need to.
To their left was Mario Rovira of Bodegas Akilia. He had a cracking range of earthy but fine natural reds, his Tosca Cerrada and, most interestingly, a buzzy, lively palomino with 16 months in cement. Really good stuff and worth looking out for.
And on their other side was Fran Asencio of Bodegas Alonso, with whom I was able to finally catch up after numerous near misses. Worth catching up too because the wines are top drawer – the Velo de Flor I knew all about (which didn’t stop me having some) but it was a great opportunity to try the three oxidated wines. Fascinating to try them together since they couldn’t be more different in character: a smooth and silky palo cortado, an oloroso that is at the same time burnt caramel but light and ethereal and a super fine, super dry amontillado. But most surprising of all – and interesting – was an unfortified palomino with a couple of years in the barrel, on its way to becoming a “Sanlucar vin jaune”.
And even then there were more sherries: la Bien Pagá and its mother ship Delgado Zuleta, who were showing off a new amontillado. The only disappointment was that Fernando Angulo of Alba Viticultores didn’t make it.
And there were also some excellent wines from other regions inside – the garnachas from Bodegas Ziries, German Blanco and his ranges from Bierzo, Ribera del Duero and Rioja, Olivier Riviere and Viña Zorzal, to name just four of the producers. I had the chance to catch up with Colet, a traditional cava maker that has successfully teamed up with Equipo Navazos for several years – they didn’t have the Colet Navazos with them but you can’t beat some quality bubbles.
And, finally, there were also some top quality drinkers around: friendly faces all over the salon, a lot of laughter and as the evening wore on even a few smooches.
Absolutely top bombing – may they celebrate many more!
My excitement t getting my hands on a first few bottles of the new saca of the Solear en rama manzanilla was tempered by my guilty conscience at the big backlog of draft posts accumulating on the blog, of which this is one. I appreciate that this might be disconcerting, implying as it does that I actually take some time to write these posts (against all evidence to the contrary) but it is true. The silence in social media over the last few weeks was less an indication of monastic self denial and more an indictment of my lack of blogging discipline. In my defense, I would plead that many of the wines in the backlog were knocked back during pretty convivial lunches (many of them, like this one, at Territorio Era) that it would have been a shame to interrupt, however rapid a chap’s thumbs have become over the years.
But enough excuses, this wine deserves a write up, even if it isn’t the first, and even if I don’t have anything useful to add (but after all noone comes here for that). It is one of the most “biological” of the recent sacas – a real buzzy yeasty and salty pungency to the nose that goes beyond sea air and strays over onto rockpools and low tide, and then a very sharp, sizzling profile on the palate. It has that big, spicey and slightly bitter green leaf favor and then again a super fresh, saline finish.
An absolute belter. Bring on summer!
I remember the first time I had this thinking it was a palo cortado and it is definitely finer and sharper than your average oloroso. Has a sharp, vinegary nose, with nuts and caramel, sharp acidity first up on the palate and plenty of nutty caramel and salty flavour without having a big structure or solidity to it.
The fine, lighter profile makes it a good wine on the dinner table – and indeed I had this as part be of a cracking lunch at Angelita Madrid – and pretty distinctive stuff.
Really top class Spanish bubbles these: 100% chardonnay from Penedés as the base wine with 41 months of secondary fermentation and rack and licor de expedición made up of manzanilla and manzanilla pasada.
A nice deep, gold color as you can see and tight, well integrated bubbles. Although it is dry it is big and rich in body, and elegantly shaped – not too much of the “diesel” I sometimes find in cavas with a lot of rack time. Maybe a hint of nutty and roasted flavours like an oxidated blanc de blancs, and mouthwatering mineral freshness at the end to make the finish extra clean and fresh.
In fact a great combination of a big tasty wine but with a sharp acidity up front and a fresh salinity behind. Really excellent.
This was one of the first Equipo Navazos magic numbers that I tried back in the day and I had been hanging on to a bottle for nostalgia’s sake, but some recent experiences with bottle aged finos persuaded me to get stuck into it.
And I am glad I did. It is a top quality fino. In aromatic and mineral terms right up there. The nose in particular was fantastic after opening, and it was a lovely bottle to have open (if not for very long).
But I am also glad I opened it now rather than waitig. There is no doubt that these wines – in particular the finos and manzanillas – evolve with the years and I am far from sure that they improve after the first two or three. Comparisons may be odious but when I compare this to the current, absolutely outstanding release from the same source, I find the new wine to have more pep, more body and more all around pizzazz. The flipside of that is that the wine becomes more elegant, more gentle with years, and the time also seems to result in a change in flavour profile from roasted to slightly burnt, bitter almonds.
So a lovely wine opened just in time. How does it evolve once open? Sadly we will never know.
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