This is a sensational wine, really good and seems like it is better every time I try it. Admittedly today a fella has had a very good lunch already and is in one of his happy places but even so.
The brown of gold colour, big yeasty nose, oily mouthfeel and intense salty olive flavours – almost a prototype of the kind of wine I love. I would maybe ask for just a bit more nuts but hey.
This was put in front of me today at lunch and I was challenged to identify it.
It was a little bit cold but you can see it is a beautiful colour. It was restrained on the nose – orange and walnuts – but also yeasty, definite hay bales, which made me think of an amontillado.
On the palate too it was elegant – a bit of sweet spice first up, nicely integrated salinity and not too astringent or woody – if anything a nice fruity finish. Indeed it was mellow and elegant all through, which again made me wrongly think of amontillado.
In summary, I got it wrong and failed to identify it – my credibility now in shreds. In my defense, it was cold and I had a cold. Looking back, however, I kind of judged it on what it was not – thought there was not enough zing, astringency and structure for it to be a palo – rather than looking for the bready, dry indicators of an amontillado.
Was very nice though.
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.
After all those palo cortados last night I felt like a nice glass of amontillado and this is just the ticket.
I first opened this bottle back in September and have had a few dips in the time since – it is one of those wines you can drink on any occasion.
Anyway, here it is again, a beautiful orange amber colour – a touch darker than I remember from six weeks ago and maybe just a bit less sweetness on the nose. Seems an odd thing to say about a wine that has been traditionally aged for so long but in the few weeks open it seems to have lost a little energy.
It still has a powerful zingy, acidic feel to it -really acidic on the tongue – and a big flavour of smokey herbs and burnt caramel. What I love about these amontillados is not just the bready, nuttiness but the lack of astringency compared to the olorosos and palo cortados – they don’t seem to have the same reduction at a similar traditional age. It makes the finish much lighter and more elegant.
Whatever, this was cracking. Am glad to have had a couple of glasses, if sad to have finished the bottle by doing so.
Yum and indeed, yum. This is absolutely spot on – a big yeast bomb. Nice gold straw colour. Fresh hay bales on the nose, intense saline citric juiciness on the tongue. Long, but a touch bitter on the finish.
Really good – I am more and more of the view that these Tradicion Finos are better taken in the first few months.
So here we go – a wine I have been looking forward to tasting for weeks and one of the most exciting projects in sherrydom, as I wrote back when it first arrived. (I am going to try and be objective but I will be honest and admit that I just want this project and the guys behind it – including the Cuatrogatos Wineclub – to succeed for a lot of reasons.)
First impression – the colour. It is a solid looking, relatively dark gold (the clear bottle can play tricks on your mind and make you expect something slighly paler) and doesn’t seem to shine like an older wine can (this has, after all, been “only” three years under flor). Maybe a slight hint of green – maybe not.
The nose is a cracking mix of fruit and yeast – smells like fresh herbs, green tea (or even that german appley type tea) and apple/cider. Again, having read all about the old vines, the exceptional harvest and select fruit it is hard not to want to smell fruit here, but in the presence what seems more remarkable is how rounded and mellow the nose is: none of the piercing quality of some mostos/younger wines.
On the palate, it is big and voluminous in texture and, even in this day and age where one is accustomed to a 6 or an 8 year old manzanilla en rama, it has a great saline zingyness to it. It is compact and integrated and the fruit and fresh herbs are there in quantity: what it might lack in contours and definition it makes up for in flavour, and there is no sourness or bitterness in the finish.
Not the most elegant manzanilla (how could it be on such short notice?) but as fresh and full flavoured as it is fascinating. An excellent first instalment and I am really excited to see what this project will achieve.
Equipo Navazos release some exciting, top class wines, and when, as this week, the new releases are on offer from Coalla Gourmet then it is just too good an opportunity to pass up.
This wine is also right up my street. It is a new saca from the bota that gave us the luscious Bota 37 and it is tremendous. These Equipo Navazos wines often have fascinating back stories and this one is no different. The original botas were bought by Valdespino from Hijos de Raniera P. Marín (most famous for La Guita) and then topped up with unfortified manzanilla pasada – making it a “natural amontillado” with an average age of around 22 years.
The resulting wine is a gorgeous rich, dark amber colour – looks for all the world like the golden syrup I use to sweeten my porridge of a morning – and also has a slightly sweet nose of honey and caramel on top of hay bales (which takeover as the wine opens out) and spicey herbs. A really cracking nose for a 20 year old amontillado.
On the palate it goes the journey as they say – after the honey sweet nose at first it is dry, acidic/zingy and has an intensity and noticeably salinity, then it opens out into a big structure of caramel and herbs and fades to a noticeably smokey, burnt sugar finish. It is long and delicious and slightly sticky.
Really excellent – the 37 was a lovely wine and the three years in those botas have only made it more interesting.
Continuing on with my vintage obsession of today it is time to top and tail this note of this lovely oloroso abocado. I got this at the recommendation of Vila Viniteca – who have a great range of sherries and organize some top class tastings.
It is by Lustau and is surely one of the pioneers in this vintage sherry game. Sherry Notes has a fantastic write up that I cannot hope to match, so get over there for details.
The problem with finding a note like that is that it is hard to go on and make your own note – but anyway here are my own impressions.
I love the colour – a red brown that is clear if not quite crystalline. I love the nose too – brown sugar and raisins, burnt caramel, and alcohol, which comes over as close to the polish and pine needles of many a top class palo cortado.
It has a nice burnt taste to it too – I find it ever so sticky in texture but it has a nice balanced range of flavours. Nice acidity, big black treacle, burnt sugar, sweet spices, the afore mentioned pine needles, plum pudding (burnt raisins), even walnut skin nutty.
A good balance indeed – sticky but spicey.
This is a very highly rated oloroso by a label – Bodegas Tradicion -that is paradoxically newer than most of its wines and which has done as much as anyone to bring high quality sherries to market (and sell them)(for good money).
I love the information on the label – this is bottle number 1136/4200 from the first saca of 2014. On the back it mentions that this has been aged in casks/botas “very” soaked in wine – and it has been in there a good good long while.
In colour it is at the orange/yellow end of the scale of browns and very clear. On the nose it has very pronounced caramel, baked citrus and a little alcohol – I don’t find it the most expressive nose for an oloroso.
On the palate it is balanced and zingy, full of burnt caramel flavours maybe not as big as expected but eternally long. On its label it talks about a concentration of aromas. I buy the concentration but I don’t pick out a lot of different things. On the other hand, it is superbly drinkable – a really elegant oloroso with no rough edges.
Very, very, good.
Another homecoming and this doesn’t seem to have changed an iota in one week – if anything the nuts are a little more toasted. Still magnificent.
undertheflor.com 