TFWATH Palomino 2022

A collaboration with Raúl Moreno in Jerez. Clone 84 Palomino from a small plot of organically farmed vines on chalky albariza soil in pago Balbaína Alta in Jerez.

Handpicked grapes were footstomped as whole bunches and macerated/fermented for about 10 days. Then the grapes were gently pressed in a small manual basket press. The wine was racked to a single 700l chestnut amontillado cask, where it aged under flor for seven months. It was then transferred to tank where it rested for two or three further months before being bottled, unfined and unfiltered. Added sulphur: <40mg/l.

Tasting notes: spicy, salty, soft, complex and ever-evolving. Palomino has given cooked apple. The stems have given white pepper. The flor and barrel have given a gorgeous complexity of slow-building fenugreek and curry leaf spice. The finish is ripe apple and spice, with a supple savouriness, a sapidity, which keeps you drinking.

The vineyard is in Dominio de las Animas, a 12th-century property which used to be one of best-known in Jerez. Back ‘in the day’, when the Spanish kings recovered the land of Jerez from the Moors, this area was called Granina. The conquerors famously declared that they had recovered ’Granina and Cádiz’.

Recently this property was bought by Thomas de Wangen, a friend, a very likeable man with a love of wine and the tradition of wine, who is doing good things in Jerez. Thomas gave me permission to use grapes from a prime spot on the 22ha property of Domino de los Animas.

Old clones of palomino. More flavour intensity in the grapes, more chalk in the soils. We are in pago Balbaína Alta, on the border between Jerez de la Frontera and Puerto de Santa Maria – a place that Raúl describes as ‘one of of best grands crus in Jerez’.

ABV: 11.5%

Organically farmed grapes. Suitable for vegetarians and vegan.