I have been after these 3 en rama for a while – a set of a manzanilla (Sanlucar de Barremeda, obviously) and two finos (from Jerez and el Puerto de Santa Maria respectively) all en rama by Lustau and their star enologist, Manuel Lozano. He picked a very small number of botas for this bottling.  I picked them up this week and here we go.

First up is the manzanilla. It is a rich gold with a note of green. The nose is mineral, ozone/sea air, and a fresh, raw yeastiness – more bales of green grass than bales of hay.

It is full of flavour, again zingy minerals, nice salty water texture and a full mouthful of yeasty, herbal flavours. Minteral on the finish – a nice smokey finish in fact.

Very nice wine indeed. Good start to the evening.

I was certain I had tried this manzanilla by bodegas Baron before but in fact back in May I had the straight manzanilla. This one is the en rama which I picked up at the weekend from a cracking little store near my office called Vino & Compania. According to the ficha it is the same age as the straight up manzanilla, at 3-4 years under flor and the chief difference between them is the level of filtering – this one only very lightly filtered with egg whites. There is no indication that I can see of when this was bottled.

It is dark gold and crystal clear (quite a dark gold for a 4 year old wine) and has an interesting nose of copper, metals, somewhere between vegetable and fruit (a sweet tomato ) and sweet herbs. Maybe a little bit of bottle age – but hard to tell. Very gentle salinity first up (although it creeps up on you and tingles on the tongue) and without being massive in flavour it is nicely rounded – again fruit and juicy yeasty herbs.

Not overdone in any way and seems to have more oomph than the filtered version – a really nice little bottle.

Picked up a couple more of these and am glad to report that this one is just as juicy as the first one I opened a few weeks ago.

First, an apology. When I last wrote about this I referred to a “rat” – a reference which was a long way from the mark. The label is in fact a dormouse or “liron careto” aka “dormilon del antifaz” (masked sleepyhead) and a handsome little beast.

More importantly, the wine is a little beauty too. Lovely rich old gold in colour and a big aromatic nose of salty hay bales and sweeter kitchen herbs like oregano. The mouthfeel is fatty and lush and it is really juicy: lovely herbal, yeasty, vegetable flavours – a long toasty taste like a vegetable pastry.

I really like it – will have to hunt out a magnum of this one.

Tree up and a fella deserves a cooling glass. Here we have the Manzanilla Maruja from Bodegas Juan Piñero, where the enologo is none other than Ramiro Ibañez.

This is from a solera originally used for fino by Terry (you may recall I happened upon a venerable bottle of fino Maruja). The fruit is from El Hornillo and was fermented in the “lagar” at the vine itself using naturally occurring yeasts. It is then aged in a solera with no fewer than 8 criaderas and has spent an average of around 8-9 years under flor.

The wine is a really serious creation.  Has a solid, slightly dark gold colour to it and a big nose that just shouts sea air – lots of salty ozone – yeasty hay bales and, at least at first, a little apple.

Very salty on the palate – really zingy on the tongue and quite full bodied in texture. Massive power and length but very mineral – I don’t get quite as much juice or fruit out of it as I expected. (It suggests a serving temperature of 12-15ºC but second time around I have tried it in the 10-12ºC range and I think it expresses a little better by just muting that salinity a touch).

A serious, salty and mineral manzanilla – just maybe lacking some fruit and aromatics for my taste.

  
Conscience brings me back to this having failed to pay due care and attention to it during a long and riotous night last week. This is one of the wines of the week at the superb Restaurante Vinoteca Garcia de la Navarra.

Darkish in colour and just a little dull rather than crystalline. On the nose it is also relatively meek – haybales and maybe just a bit of ozone, but not a big aromatic manzanilla by any means.

On the palate it has a nice fresh entry and then an intense, zingy salinity, with maybe just a little yeastiness and a herbal/vegetable flavour. It is very, very long indeed, but has quite a lot of alcoholic heat. 

A potent, almost fierce manzanilla but quiet in aromas and flavours. I may have got hold of this too soon/too late – hard to say. 

  
An en rama with no indication of the date of the saca (should have brought my bar code reader).

Deep dark colour on this one and a piercing salty mineral, old apple nose. Has a smooth entry but a very intense back end, again lots of minerals, lemony citrus, and a long lingering dry finish. The intense flavour reminds me more of the manzanilla pasada than the straight up manzanilla, but it is a bit more rough around the edges. 

Not quite as juicy/fruity as some but it is a mouthful alright.

  
Manzanilla monday and the rat’s days are numbered. This looks, smells and feels richer and more potent than other sacas I have tasted recently. 

The colour is slightly dark old gold – certainly half a shade darker than I remember. On the nose there is a lot of yeast – big salty hay bales – very aromatic, with a suggestion of sweeter herbs. 

The mouthfeel is fatty and lush as always, and on the palate it is just as rich as it looks and smells – massive herbal, vegetable flavours and salinity and maybe just a little bit bitter as it fades away. Really juicy rather than zingy but a powerful mouthfull either way. 

Fantastic, the week is now under weigh and I need to get some more of these little rodents. 

  
Love this – it is excellent and might be my favourite one of these yet. 

I love the colour – straw with a sun tan. The nose too – hay bales, bread and unsalted nuts.

On the palate it is voluminous – oily even – and salty. It is really salty, then powerfully yeasty and flavourful, very very long and fading to a salty, nutty, bready flavour. 

A real gem – wish I had a magnum of this.