Another edition of this top class en rama over lunch in the Chula de Chamberi.
A darkish gold in colour, and a lovely nose of salty air, nuts and just a little bit of hay bales. Nice body too it and salty and spicey at the finish – to be quite honest I have just looked back at the notes of the November 2014 and this is bang in that same profile. A really nice little wine with lots of things in it.
From the comments you read and hear the great wines from Jerez with a bit of personality are often likened to their cousins up in Burgundy, so I thought I would take advantage of having a nice Chassagne Montrachet open to have another look at the Fino la Barajuela.
The Burgundy was glorious, a beautiful bright gold colour, a nice flowery, lemon and limestone nose, then elegance, balance and precision with flavoura of nectar and pollen, pear or apple and citrus acidity. Absolutely top class (I may be over-egging it but it was even better than I expected.)
The Barajuela is the business too but goes about that business in a markedly different manner. The chardonnay is full of fruit and so is the Barajuela – in fact it has more fruit than many of its peers in the sherry triangle, but maybe what strikes you most is the salinity in nose and palate, and the way the salinity and zing takes the place of the acidity. Do they leave room for the full range of flavours that the burgundy has? Perhaps not, but on the other hand the Barajuela’s minerals and muscle give it a different dimension, a uniqueness that lifts it above the comparison.
I originally wrote this note in terms of a comparison but I realize now – thanks to a comment from Alvaro Giron – that that is unhelpful. These are very different kettles of fish and it is the differences that are illuminating. My verdict: don’t buy the Barajuela if what you want is a chardonnay. It is something else.
I only mentioned yesterday that there was a cream from Finca Matalian that I hadn’t tried and, a mere hour or two later I was given some with my cheese at Angelita Madrid. A genuine coincidence and a happy one because like many of the Finca Matalian wines this is very easy to drink.
Apparently a blend of 70% oloroso and 30% moscatel, it has a dark, dark brown hue but clear, then the sweet vegetable/stewed tomato notes of the moscatel on the nose. A chutney-like sweetness (that went perfectly with the cheese, of course) on the palate too. Not very acidic or complex in sherry terms but not too heavy or too sweet either, and not at all sticky.
Another balanced, drinkable wine.
In the course of tasting the Pitijopos the first time around the most expressive mosto at the first time of asking was one from way down in Chiclana, to the South of Jerez, and a specific pago called Finca Matalian, only 7km from the sea, owned by Primitivo Collantes.
It made such an impression that I have since felt compelled to taste, or retaste, all of the wines I could find from that little patch of land:
I would recommend anyone to do the same. These are beautifully made, under-rated wines and an excellent opportunity to taste the finos and amontillado alongside the related white wine. It is fascinating to see the difference the flor makes, eating away all that fruit and glycerine and exposing an extremely mineral frame, and equally intriguing to see how the oxidation of the amontillado (probably my favourite and one of the most drinkable wines around) creates the illusion of bringing the fruit back.
And there is more to come. This isn’t the full list – there is another sweet sherry and another Moscatel that I haven’t got to yet, and while theViña Matalian was fermented in Inox but there is also now a related white wine – the Socaire – that has been fermented and aged 12 months in an old sherry cask. I will report back on that shortly and the others in due course. It is also said that Don Primitivo has planted a couple of hectares of “Uva Rey”.
(Photo of Finca Matalian earlier this week, courtesy of Primitivo Collantes.)
Since he will be coming to Madrid soon I thought I would revisit and update this post from last October about Ramiro Ibañez and (although Willy is not coming to Madrid as far as I know) give some recognition to his Jerez based partner in crime while I am at it.
Last October I shared a cracking piece by Spanish Wine Lover about Ramiro Ibañez, the maverick winemaker behind exciting projects such as Encrucijado, Pitijopos, Pandorga, UBE, and Manzanilla de Añada, as well as many other more traditional, but top class wines (including, in particular, El Cerro and La Maruja). In the eight months since then though he and Willy Perez have been up to all sorts.
First, they have been writing. The so called Sobrinos de Haurie are writing a new history of the wines of the region, of which the first section is already available. Churchill once famously said that history was going to treat him kindly because he was going to “write it himself” (and he did) but these guys are driven by higher motives. In fact it is one of the things that most impresses about them: maverick as they may appear, they are not just experimenting for the sake of it. Rather, they evidently venerate the history of the region, feel the responsibility of continuing its traditions and want to restore the region’s past greatness.
Second, they have been revitalizing the local tourist industry. I was fortunate enough to be invited down for a visit by Ramiro and Willy in March and it was quite remarkable. Not just the visit to the pagos and the explanation of the ideas but the demonstration of how those pagos and those ideas translate into wines. Different class. And I was not alone: they seem to have spent most of their weekends this spring putting their case to bloggers and writers of every fur and feather – including proper writers such as Victor de la Serna and Andrew Jefford, amongst others. They are also happy to share their knowledge and photos with bloggers (thanks guys), spend days commenting on articles at all hours of day and night and frankly do whatever is necessary to get the message out.
Third, they have been involved in some pretty interesting debates and initiatives – including high profile catas at Vinoble and elsewhere, and the lower profile but even more interesting Manifesto 119, aimed at encouraging local winemakers to recover forgotten varieties.
Most importantly, they continue to win their arguments the best way possible: by banging out cracking wines. The next volume of the Pitijopos could well be the most important lesson you could learn about terroir in Sanlucar – breath is bated. Volume II of the Manzanilla de Añada was announced ready today, UBE 2014 was as good as expected, and Willy’s Fino la Barajuela 2013 exceeded even my fanboy expectations.
Technical excellence, respect for tradition, hard work, generosity, imagination and energy, and top class wines. If these guys didn’t exist, we would have to invent them.
I frankly am always surprised by manzanilla pasadas – every time I come back to them I am struck by something different. It may be the effect of time in bottle or maybe I just don’t have a very good memory.
This is the superb little manzanilla pasada from Callejuela – where Ramiro Ibañez consults making an excellent range of wines (and some historic ones). This is a gem I have tried more times than I have reviewed (here and here).
Today I am struck by the acetaldehide nose and spicey, saltiness of this wine. Could be my excessive recent partaking of fruitier wines with less time under flor I suppose but it is really striking. On the nose the apples are there underneath the hay bales, as if stored away or something, and the acetaldehide is tempered by the salty minerals – a sort of apple stash in a haystack at the seaside. On the palate too that appley fruit is there at the beginning but then it is zingy to the point of scorching and the finish is decidedly spicey.
A really serious wine (this time).
Here we have the latest new kid on the block, a wine I picked up from Enoteca Barolo and about which I have seen a lot of on twitter and the like lately.
It is from Lebrija, a town to the North of Jerez on the banks of the Guadalquivir and in Seville province, by Bodegas Gonzalez Palacio – a bodega founded and has a pretty good ficha and a pretty good website with descriptions of the vineyard – Viña Abuelo Curro and the Lagar as well as the Bodegas – gives you the sense that they fall into the “winemaking” category. As does this wine – it is an unfortified 100% palomino aged under flor in bota for 12 months (a 2013 so it has had a bit of time in the bottle too). So old school it is new school – fans of the history of the region will know that this sort of thing was extremely popular in the 17th and 18th Centuries before the soleras came along (and in case you missed it it also says so on the back label).
It is nice colour – a slightly dark gold/straw with touches of green, and has the pungent aroma of a mosto. Smells like it is going to be full of fruit – baked, cidery apples and maybe just a touch bready. Then on the palate it has that little bit of biologically aged class – fresh and saline to balance the fruit. On the website they say pineapple and I would agree (not a ripe, sugary one, a slightly tough one), with a bit of bitterness and a fresh finish.
Another promising edition to a burgeoning new category of wines that some hope will be the new “entry level” for the wines of the region. Interesting stuff.
The en rama version of the classic 8-10 year old Montilla Moriles fino (TN here) by Perez Barquero and this is possibly even better.
Lovely old gold colour and big on aromas of haybales and yeast but also a bit of chamomile tea and some grapefruity citrus. Quite solid on the palate but not flabby at all, and the flavours are punchy, spicey and zingy. It really follows through on those hay bales with a salty, yeasty, intense palate.
A really top class fino.
An unexpected treat last night while out at dinner with friends, this is the brilliant little manzanilla pasada by Barbadillo that I first tried and wrote about back in March. Really nice green apples to it – lovely stuff.
Unfortunately it wasn’t popular with my friends last night though – I ended up with most of the bottle to myself. Not a big wine drinking crowd, admittedly, but more proof that these lighter wines are more of a challenge for those new to the sherry experience.
Another one of the oddities I was able to try at Reserva y Cata the other week, this is something along the lines of an oloroso from Bodegas Iglesias in Condado de Huelva. It is 100% Zalema, the white wine grape of choice in Huelva, and according to this ficha had 8 years in a solera system of 650 litre bocoys. I am guessing from the label that the solera was founded in 1992. Has a spirity nose similar to a medium sherry – maybe just a touch more fruit and sweet hazelnuts rather than almonds. Then on the palate it is similarly flighty – juicy and enjoyable but not a lot of mineral here so it comes across as a bit insubstantial.
Pleasant, uncomplicated stuff.
undertheflor.com 