Saca of April 2014
D.O. Jerez – Xérès – Sherry
18% alc. – 75cl
Hijos de Rainera Pérez Marín
Sanlúcar de Barrameda
Production: 2,700 bottles
La Bota of Palo Cortado 52 “Sanlúcar” is a groundbreaking contribution to the concept of palo cortado in the Sherry District, and the result of decades of experience and reflection by Eduardo Ojeda and his team. This is a palo cortado that, despite its relative youth, honors the strict requirements of smoothness, purity, and complexity that every wine belonging to this noble category must meet.
This truly delicate and appealing palo cortado is doubly outstanding for being a single-vineyard, vintage wine: it has been sourced from a selection of musts coming from grapes harvested in a single vintage in the Pago Miraflores, in Sanlúcar de Barrameda. It was then aged in Sherry butts and in barriques filled almost all the way up (a tocadedos) in order to avoid excessive oxidation. For this first saca we have selected the contents of six botas de cañón (butts located at the end of each corridor formed between two andanas or rows of casks), since the excellent quality of these vessels (long filled with old Amontillado) provides an extra touch of fineness and depth to the final result.
It is of course a fundamentally oxidative wine, which had only a slight natural and almost inevitable exposure to biological aging in the tanks where the must was waiting for the moment to be fortified up to 17.5% alc. before being transferred to the aging casks. Even in almost absolute absence of flor, this wine boasts the typical minerality of the coastal vineyards in Sanlúcar from where it comes. Indeed, its organoleptic profile evokes other wines that share the same origin: La Bota de Amontillado 37, La Bota de Florpower MMX 44 and 53, and also the different editions of La Bota de Manzanilla Pasada.
For a palo cortado, its alcoholic strength is a fairly moderate 18%, and this alcohol is perfectly integrated and balanced, making it a very drinkable and refreshing wine–as well as complex and long. Probably the best imaginable match for a long list of oriental dishes, from India to Japan, with a very special inclination toward the Asian Southeast. A true delight of a wine, we cannot hide our enthusiasm for it.