Author: sharquillo

Vintage chic

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The issue of vintages has been on my mind a great deal lately. First, a couple of weeks ago I was lucky enough to take part in a brilliant tasting of vintage port organized by Vila Viniteca here in Madrid – including four examples of the fantastic 1994 vintage and a wonderful Niepoort from 1970 (thanks David). After that tasting, a few of us went for dinner which we washed down with a couple of vintage champagnes (what else would you drink after port?), including an amazing Pascual Doquet 1995 (thanks Guille). After all those vintages from those two splendid regions, this blogger was left musing on why he so rarely saw vintage sherries.

Not that there are none. The half dozen or so avid readers of this blog will recall brushes with vintage wines by Cota 45 (the Encrucijado MMXII, and again), Willams & Humbert (2006 fino en rama), Lustau (1997 Oloroso), la Callejuela 2012 Manzanilla de Añada (not once but twice), Ximenez Spinola (2014 Pedro Ximenez) and, most recently, Cota 45 again(the 2014 Pandorga), and although not blogged I have been lucky enough to imbibe several vintage palo cortados (the 1974, 1983 and 1987) by the great Gonzalez Byass (my favourite, the 1974, I haven’t seen around much).

Nevertheless, in percentage terms we are not talking a great deal of wine – eight posts of a total of 287 to date – which is surprising. I bet if you looked at a blog specialized in Port or Champagne it would be a different story and it is a situation I have lamented in the past.

I am not saying do away with soleras – you certainly should maintain miraculous creations like La Panesa, Inocente and others. I also appreciate that soleras do more than merely blend wines: the wines of different average ages contain different nutrients that interact with the different strains of flor and produce different effects (which is why it is frustrating that more producers don’t specify how many criaderas they use).

But it would be great to see how much can be achieved by the fruit of an individual year’s harvest. Anyone involved in cultivation will tell you that harvests can vary widely from year to year – I remember a cracking chat in a cider bar in Gijon where the lads were worrying about that year’s apples – and while it is mathematically impossible for every year to be above average, the same laws tell us that quite a few of them will be.

Indeed, although at this level anecdotal and not very scientific, I once carried out a comparison of vintage vs solera (the 2006 Fino en Rama and the Fino Tradicion may 2015). On that occasion, although the wines were different to start with, they would have been of approximately the same age at the time of consumption and the benefit of the solera was clear – the lovely umami fullness from the action of the flor – but so was the individuality of the vintage wine (which I slightly preferred).

This is why I am increasingly of the mind that a sytem similar to the one used in the Douro – where at the sobretablas stage, say, makers and Consejo Regulador determine whether to declare a vintage or not – would be an excellent way forward. (Particularly if allied with a bit of self restraint by the makers, say 2 or 3 vintages a decade like the best Port houses.) At the same time, they could of course continue solera production.

So it is great to see stuff like the piece this week by Paz Ivison in elmundovino (which has also been transcribed into English by the excellent sherrynotes) and even more exciting to see the first sections of the book being written by Ramiro Ibañez and Willy Perez (“Las Añadas en el marco de Jerez” or “Vintages in the Jerez Region”).

I really hope that it is just the beginning. I believe vintages are more interesting and provide scope for greater expression and differentiation and must be worth exploring further. In fact, winemakers: I promise that if you make them, I will buy them.

Amontillado 1730

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This is a VORS (30 year old) amontillado by bodegas Alvaro Domecq (not the lost, lamented giant, but a scion of the family that bought the business of Pilar Aranda, a historic almacenista). I got this one so cheap I was intrigued but it turned out to be a really tasty little bottle of amontillado.

Beautiful red colour – maybe not quite as crystal clear as some. On the nose it is like barrel aged toffee – little bit of that gasoline buzz in the background. Then on the palate it isn’t all that full but there is acidity, toffee and burnt flavours.

Very pleasant drop all told.

Fino Alexander Jules may 2015 

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I must say I feel more than a little envious, and in awe, of this guy. Listen to this:

Alexander Jules is my label of barrel selected sherries. I search the Sherry Triangle for soleras I love in unique and great bodegas, tasting each barrel in the solera, marking with chalk those I feel to be the most complex and elegant, or those that reflect the profile I would like to bring out from within the solera. All bottlings are en rama, being only gently filtered or entirely unfiltered and, starting in 2014, no sulfites are added.

The label reference indicates that this wine has been taken from 4 botas selected from 65 in a solera of Juan Piñero (hence the 4/65). The reference to Juan Piñero makes me wonder: are we talking about Fino Camborio? If so the result is surprisingly different. But it is indeed and the reason is explained perfectly in this superb note on the website.

And the wine is as good as you might expect. If you like big yeasty finos you will love this. Old gold colour, big hay bales, nuts and minerals on the nose. In the mouth it is silky, sapid and tasty – easy, cool entry, real salty zing on the tongue and the sides of the mouth and then big yeasty flavours. Seems to last for ages – and keeps on making the mouth water too.

Only a 1000 of them bottled so get hold if you can.

Pandorga 2014 

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Here’s another interesting wine from Ramiro Ibañez at Cota 45, the “Pandorga” (meaning kite, hence the label), a 100% pedro ximenez, this one from 2014 and a much anticipated purchase from the Cuatrogatos Wine Club.

Interestingly, according to a note I just read this comes from PX grown on a vineyard you may have heard of: La Panesa, in Carrascal (which I think I am right in saying used to be the property of Emilio Hidalgo, and inspired the name of their famous fino). Harvested slightly late, the fruit is left in the sun in the traditional way (although I would guess slightly less than is usual), fermented and spends a year in bota – I believe this has literally just been bottled.

As with other wines by Cota 45, there seems to be a deliberate intention to allow the characteristics of the fruit to shine through: it is only 12% proof so you know it is going to be sweet and it doesn’t disappoint on that score, but it is relatively fresh and light by comparison to the heavier, darker styles of PX you may be accustomed to (not unlike the Ximenez Spinola Vintage 2014, although I think I remember that one as more raisiny).

As I have often said, I struggle to pick out the structure and features of sweeter wines, and on first tasting this it was no different, but a day later I am getting more from it. It is a honey-like amber in colour and not as cloudy as the picture above suggests (not sure what has happened there) – maybe just a little short of crystal clear. On the nose it is more grapey than raisiny – with a suggestion of that marmalade, old fruit aroma you get in the more intense champagnes.

On the tongue it is sugary rich like a fruit juice first up, very nicely integrated acidity, and now I am getting a real marmalade/intense apricot jam vibe at the back -bittersweet fruit. The finish isn’t sticky at all, but those fruit flavours hang around.

This is wine that you could drink gallons of without realizing (probably a good thing it comes in slightly smaller 50cl bottles) but also merits some study.

The Magic Numbers: the big one

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I was reminded this week of my piece on the magic numbers when I saw on a UK wine-merchant’s price list a bottle of La Bota de Amontillado Nº1, “Navazos”, December 2005, at a price of £480 (€630) (including VAT).  This wine – of which 600 bottles were released – was not initially put on open sale, but as you can see from the comment below the line, some bottles were available for €25,80. Indeed, when I caught up with Equipo Navazos their releases of the descendants of this wine were selling in the low €30s and I am told that a few years ago Clan Tabernario got their hands on a bottle of this for around that.

Of course a wine bottled in December 2005 is bound to appreciate in value, and recently there has been a surge in interest in bottle conditioned sherries (a topic to which I really need to give some thought) but it is a pretty good markup by any standards. Even more interestingly, La Bota de Amontillado Nº26, “Cinco Años Despues”, December 2010, which again was never released to the public, and of which only 150 were bottled, is the most expensive sherry on the list at £1200 (€1578).

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This average to poor blogger has never tried any of these wines, which are no doubt excellent to great. However, I don’t need to try them to be able to tell you where the gained value of the Navazos wines comes from: their unique character and scarcity (and I was going to suggest also their historic value).

Let’s put this in context, though: that £1200 (€1578) wouldn’t get this wine into the top 300 prices on this list – in fact it is equal 345th price on this (pretty awesome) list (although looking back some of those prices are for “assortments” of DRC, for those keen on multi bottle packs)  and less than a tenth of the £12,000 stickers on some of those very big beasts.

The wines of Jerez are still a very long way from their rightful place at the top of the pile, but I really believe that Equipo Navazos are showing the way forward. All hail to them and enjoy those 26s if you still have them fellas!

UBE 2013 – Take 2 

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Like a bus in the rain, you wait ages for your first bottle of UBE and then three come along at once. Having had my first bottle on Friday here we are, not a week later, on bottle number 2, this time in the marvellous  Taberna Verdejo.

Not a lot to report against last week’s tasting, this came out with a little bit of an aroma/first impression of oxidation but it improved a lot after the first glass or so. Still those same sweet herbal (ie herbs that suggest sweetness) flavours. My lunch companion made an excellent point about the acidity – or maybe intensity – of the wine giving it a nice balance. I certainly noticed the fruit more this time.

Actually speaking about that intensity a couple of funny things happened pairing wise. We had an excellent lunch, with a couple of navajas each, half a menestra, half a callos, a wild boar escabeche and a pato azulon: so good indeed that I completely forgot about the oloroso desert I wanted to try. Anyway, we started with a manzanilla pasada, then opened the UBE, planning to move onto an amontillado, but before we knew it we had eaten the callos (which are meaty, smokey and very tasty here) with the UBE  and, you know, it wasn’t at all bad as a pairing. Evidently we are talking contrasts but the freshness of the wine cut through the rich flavours and it stood its own ground in flavour terms quite comfortably.

No doubt about it, this is serious wine (and it was a serious lunch).

Manzanilla pasada en rama Xixarito 

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Second time around the block for this wine (didn’t really grab me the first time but there may have been some stemware issues).

According to the website we are looking at a manzanilla with an average age of 8 years from fruit from either the El Poedo or El Hato vineyards. There is a reference to the banks of the Guadalquivir river that doesn’t appear in the ficha of the Micaela but both are aged in the bodega “Molinillos 2ª” in the Barrio Alto of Sanlucar.

Since I had these two together at the Chula it is hard not to compare them. First thing you notice is the colour – this pasada is a rich gold but nowhere near as evolved. On the nose it is quite different in character too: a bitter olive, bready nose with none of the sweet citrus notes of the little cousin. Also savory on the palate by comparison, with more mineral zing and vegetable intensity and a saltier finish.

A big savory, punchy wine.

 

Manzanilla en rama Micaela (again) 

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You have to say the labels are top class on these. Quality packaging won’t solve all the problems in the sherry triangle but it certainly doesn’t hurt. What I particularly like about this one is the floral, colourful greenery – dead right for a manzanilla (even if this one isn’t particularly floral or green).

As to the wine inside, according to the website we are looking at a manzanilla en rama with an average age of 4 years under flor from Jerez Superior fruit (according to another section of the web the family has two vineyards: El Poedo and El Hato, but it is not specified which fruit is in this Micaela).

Like a lot of en ramas it has a brownish, evolved looking colour as you can see above which gives it the appearance of a much older wine.  On the nose there are the big bales of hay you expect but also a sweet, coppery, stewed tomato aroma – a bit disconcerting at first but it improves with time in the glass. On the palate it has a smooth, slightly bitter citrus quality, with well integrated minerals and alcohol that don’t intrude. Lovely long, fresh finish.

Overall a tasty and well integrated wine.

(The penny has now dropped – I did of course review this just a couple of weeks ago. Glad to see that the impressions are similar, but the colour of this one is definitely more evolved.)

What’s new in Jerez and Sanlucar?

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Wanted to link to my latest post on the sherry.wine site – no surprises here for any followers of my scrawlings.

In fact I wrote it before Christmas and it was published early January, but with a number of typos and embarassing errors (Coto, not Cota ffs) that I have only just managed to correct (although there is still a bit of misdirection in there by special request).

Having corrected it, I then tweeted a link which didn’t work, although this one seems to. Anyway, would be fascinated to know what people think.