Behold the quite magnificent list of wines by the glass on offer in Angelita Madrid – the brilliant new restaurant, wine bar and american bar at Calle Reina 4. It is the new project of the Villalon brothers – a great couple of guys who are seriously knowledgeable about all things alcoholic (if you think the winelist is impressive, you should see the hard liquor these guys have).

It must be said that that is a great range of sherries and manzanillas by the glass with ten quality wines covering all bases. The even longer list of bottles had more than 30 references including some absolute gems. (What is more, looking around last night I could see a lot of these wines in action: at one point I counted five tables drinking sherries not including me.)

We took advantage and had glasses of Arroyuelo en Rama (which was brilliant – from September 2015), Panesa, Villapanes and 2014 Pandorga, and we also had a quite sensational bottle of nine year old Do Ferreiro Cepas Velhas – which seemed young and just got better and better, and an even more amazing 40 year old Barbaresco which was smooth but structured and full of spice.

There is no doubt that it is a serious destination for wine – there were a lot of familiar faces and we were fortunate enough to bump into one of Spain’s great new winemakers – and the food was cracking too. I couldn’t fault anything that we had, from sweetbreads to dessert, although the the octopus on a puree of cauliflower was exceptionally tasty. We didn’t get around to making use of the american bar facilities this time but the sofas look dangerous and it will surely not be long before we come back and close the place.

Cracking wine, good food, great people, all adds up to good times.

(June 3 update: Have now made use of the bar facilities and I can tell you they are absolutely first class. The Whiskey Sour was simply the best I can remember.)

(June 6 update: Wanted to post to this magnificent article/interview of David Villalon by Jose Carlos Capel in el Pais – in which David gives a magnificent example of what these guys are all about (in Spanish)).

No trip to Sanlucar would have been complete without a trip to Taberna Der Guerrita, legendary cradle of the current renaissance of the wines of Jerez and Sanlucar.

Don’t be fooled by the unassuming exterior you can see above – or the colourful traditional bar (complete with local fauna) you will find when you get in through the door. There they have manzanillas of all varieties on tap and some wicked bar food – we had an awesome cheese and chicharrones – but the real magic is in the back.

The back is a beautiful modern, white space that has become a place of pilgrimmage. The wine tastings here are of an almost unbelievable class (example program for 2014 below) and have surely played a key part in helping the sherry triangle regain prestige amongst the great and the good in Spanish wine. (There is a fantastic wall of fame on the way back there with key figures from Jerez, Sanlucar, and other regions and countries.)

In fact the proprietor (proprioter?) Armando Guerra comes across as a brilliant bloke and in addition to those tastings seems to have been at the center of the innovative action in recent years. He has an absolutely outstanding little store where you can pick up rare sherries and manzanillas of every kind – paradoxically difficult to do in the region – and is not averse to taking the message on the road if necessary.

It is also a cracking place for a bite to eat and drink. We had an excellent dinner here – just seamless, tasty dish after tasty dish of traditional cooking – and you can take any of the brilliant bottles off the shelf and for a very small premium swig away at them on the spot.

A brilliant place, one I hope to go back to, and in many ways it is a worthy symbol of what is happening in the region: from the outside it appears old fashioned and traditional, and even inside the old lives on, but there is a real sense of future potential here too.

Watch this space.

On a recent trip down to El Puerto de Santa Maria we had dinner at El Faro del Puerto and I felt I had to post something. We went for the wine list and tried a lot of cracking stuff. Although Jaime, the sommelier, wasn’t around, the list was excellent and the private stash of Don Fernando (part of it and the owner in the pic above) was even better: in turns outstanding and outstandingly eclectic.

I did of course neglect to take many photos but from memory there were four pages of sherries, including some really interesting bottles. Not counting aperitifs we had some finos del puerto, including the Gutierrez Colosia Fino en Rama, the Lustau Fino del Puerto and the Pavon (all excellent) then some amontillados – the Equipo Navazos 31 (from Sanlucar), el Tresillo, the Fernando de Castilla Antique and a Gutierrez Colosia (which turned out to be the people’s choice – having ordered a glass we finished the bottle – of course I took no photo) and with the fish we had a bottle of the Equipo Navazos Florpower 57 that really showed superbly. Best of all, however, was a bottle that Fernando produced at the end (as he showed us around his bodega)- an Osborne Solera BC 200 that was just sublime – on many measures the wine of a high quality weekend.

And although we may have chosen the restaurant based on the winelist you could certainly be forgiven for going for the solid matter alone – the food was absolutely great. Not one of the dishes was less than excellent: from memory there was a tasty toast of anchovy and boquerone (er, anchovy again), a brilliant fragrant salad of pigeon and mushrooms, some tiny squid and artichokes, grilled salmonetes that were perfect (when the skin has that king prawn umami) and presa iberica in oloroso that was just soft, full flavoured and juicy. There was also some dessert but that is not really my bag.

A really excellent dinner all round, highly recommended to anyone travelling to el Puerto, and a massive thanks to our host, Don Fernando, a true gentleman and entertaining bloke who was happy to show us around his cellar and, more importantly, share it!

   A long, long overdue return to La Buena Vida, and the first in the blogging era. (Paradoxically the reason I haven’t been in ages is because we wanted to go with some friends and have been unable to all get together, so in the end a fella as had to cut through the red tape and come for lunch.)

They have a cracking winelist with a great selection of sherries by the glass (unfortunately not listed on the web) – including some excellent finos (the W&H Vintage 2006, a Fernando de Castilla en Rama from 2014, and a Tradicion), a Maestro Sierra 15 year old oloroso, some top end Tradicion VORS and the Toro Albala Vintage 1983 (in fact I gather they have some of the Toro Albala Convent hidden away). If I was going to grumble it would be that the list of sherries is a little bit hidden (under the title “by the glass”) and maybe a bit short on mid-range, pairable wines. Having said that, what is there is of the highest quality (in keeping with the rest of the winelist, which is superb).

More importantly, perhaps, some quite superb food to accompany the sherry. In addition to the menu there was a long list of off menu seasonal dishes – and no nonsense either, just quality old school cooking. We had a glass of the Vintage 2006 with some spectacular guisantes lagrima (la caviar de la huerta – see above) and some baby beans with butifarra negra and then a spicey tartare that was brilliant with the Fernando de Castilla Fino en Rama 2014. Really high class stuff .

Terrific tasting last night at Taberna Palo Cortado: Lustau‘s range of Almacenista wines (see this excellent post on Sherrynotes for background).

We had almost the entire range – the only one missing was the Jose de la Cuesta Fino del Puerto – covering the full spectrum from fino to oloroso and the whole region from Sanlucar to el Puerto. There were some real gems – the Fino del Puerto and the Oloroso Pata de Gallina were my favourites – but the overall level was excellent.

• First up was the Manzanilla Pasada by almacenista Manuel Cuevas Jurado in Sanlucar, a relatively young and delicate example of a manzanilla pasada, with notes of apples and almonds, and a great start.
• That was followed by the Amontillado de Sanlucar from the same Almacenista, a typically elegant and mineral Sanlucar amontillado that was just a little hollow in the middle.
• Then we moved to El Puerto de Santamaria and the Fino del Puerto by Jose Luis González Obregón, a brilliant, muscular seaside fino with notes reminiscent of rockpools.
• That was followed by an Amontillado del Puerto by the same almacenista, again a more muscular effort than its Sanlucar cousin and a big and tasty wine.
• The last wine from el Puerto was the oloroso, again by Jose Luis González Obregón which was richer in texture and intense in flavour but a little woody for my taste.
• Then to Jerez de la Frontera, and a palo cortado by the almacenista “Vides” (owned by a Domecq, but not one of those Domecqs) which was a spicey, racey wine and a great example of the style.
• Finally, and still in Jerez, we finished with a little gem of an oloroso, the “Pata de Gallina” by Juan Garcia Jarana, a smooth, tasty, complex, gem of a wine

It was a brillian sample of styles and locations, Carlos and Claudia from Lustau were engaging and good company and the cata was also high quality in terms of the information and content: straight to the point, most of the facts (not the vineyards, unfortunately, but otherwise very good), and thankfully not too much blarney.

And to be fair there would be scope for a fair bit of blarney here since it is a pretty good product concept (as one of my colleagues pointed out): the identification with the almacenistas gives the wines a bit of identity and context. I for one would prefer to see some vineyards referenced and even some vintage wines (like the excellent 1997 Oloroso) but this is definitely  a step in the right direction.

I am going to allow myself one gripe: the packaging is elegant and quality but ¿it is really necessary to have a unique bottle shape? This one isn’t as bad as some but still plays havoc with my limited domestic storage.

What can I say about La Taberna? The supper was fantastic and the atmosphere was superb (increasingly boisterous as the wine flowed). Really great to be there and looking forward to my next excuse.

There is something about Asturias and top quality wine. Recently I have been updating my “where to drink it” page and one of the first suggestions for places I needed to try was this one, and after only one visit it is easy to see why. Just look at the list above – some very high quality and hard to get wines there, and a pretty nice coverage of the range. To quibble, they could probably add a fresher, lighter fino or manzanilla and maybe a youngish (12-15 year) amontillado or palo cortado, but they are definitely way above average as it is.

Even better, on the blackboard (see below) they had La Bota de Manzanilla 55 and La Bota de Fino 54 at the ridiculous price of €3 a glass/€21 a bottle, and even better than that, the friendly waiter also announced he had La Bota de Palo Cortado 52 and charged me that same price. So if you want to treat yourself to a rare bottle or even just glug down some Equipo Navazos at bargain prices (for example, just compare that €3 a glass to this or this) then this is the place for you, and that is even before the food comes into the equation.

But to be quite honest, the food really ought to come into the equation. Up in Asturias they really know how to feed, and the food here is absolutely cracking – just take a look at the fabada below (a bit garish in colour terms, but the beans were butter soft and the sauce and compango was excellent), the cracking bread and the smart little aperitivo of salsichon and morcilla – absolutely brilliant.

So yes, it is staying on the list and now if you don’t mind I am going to rest my eyelids for a while.

Arzábal is one of the classic tabernas around Madrid and since I happened to be in the neighbourhood thought I would stick my head in.

No doubting the quality of the wines on this list, not at all. If one was going to be critical one would say you could add something at the very light end (a fresher, less juicy fino maybe) and something in the middle (an amontillado fino or similar). There are also two excellent PXs with the desert wines.

No doubting either the quality of the feedbag – everything was great today, some delicious garbanzos con callos, excellent bread and delicious butter (really good butter, and you should see the butter as it comes – a huge old pail of the stuff – at least 5kgs and probably more). Worth stopping in!

One of my new year’s resolutions is to spend a lot more time in this fantastic sherry-lovers paradise. Unforgiveably, and frankly unexplainably, I haven’t been since last July.  The loss is mine.

No photo of the list of sherries because (a) I am not that good at this blogging lark and (b) it would need several pictures anyway. It is certainly the best such list in Madrid – at lunch today I had a choice of at least five olorosos I had never tried before by the glass, and Paqui gave me a manzanilla I had not tried without even asking.

And as you can see from the above, the solids also have substance. The callos can be described in two words – im presionantes. Again, I didn’t study the menu in detail (once I heard the word callos … ) but rest assured, there will be further reports.

Will write up the two wines anon but for the moment ¡Viva la Taberna! ¡Viva Paqui!

I should declare a lack of objectivity here – I have known these guys for years and this feels a bit like writing a review of my own second home. Nevertheless, this blog was always going to be incomplete without a shout out to one of Madrid’s best places: Restaurante Vinoteca Garcia de la Navarra (and the Taberna de Pedro next door).

It has a quite superb wine list, reputedly 7,000 wines long (I have not counted them) and you can not only find almost anything, you will probably find it at a good price too. As for sherries, just check out the list of wines by the glass above. A really great selection, covering all bases (manzanilla, fino, oloroso, palo cortado, and amontillado) and price points and some absolute gems: how many restaurants offer 100 point Parker wines by the glass? But it is not just the wine list, Luis Garcia de la Navarra, maitre de, sommelier and all around master of ceremonies was for a long time the President of the Madrid Sommeliers Association, he knows just about everything and everybody, is a great sommelier and a great bloke. You can leave him to choose the wines and be entertained, delighted and occasionally intrigued by the results.

Quite apart from the wine, though, the food is magnificent. The big boss – Pedro Garcia de la Navarra – is another great bloke and, more importantly, a genius who could convert anything you have in the cupboard into something you would (should) cross the city for, and with the first class product he has well (often on display), I am not nearly qualified to describe it. Really cracking old school cooking: menestra de verduras, callos, pisto (with a fried egg or two), guisantes, borrajas, pollo en pepitoria, and my personal favourite, the lengua (stewed veal tongue – you will not believe how good it is). Classic old dishes that are beautifully cooked – and again, you can often just leave yourself at Pedro’s mercy.

Finally, the service is first class and at the same time really professional and genuinely friendly (I have known some of the staff for going on 10 years and they nevertheless still seem glad to see me).

All in all, really a great place, and particularly for (sherry) wine-lovers.