…and beyond: TWA, Traditional Wines of Andalucía
Equipo Navazos, Ximénez-Spínola, Toro Albalá
The southern Spanish towns of Jeréz, Sanlúcar, and Puerto de Santa María form the vertices of the Sherry Triangle. The term 'Sherry' can only be applied to fortified wines made here, but the associated world is wider. For one thing, there are the Sherry-style fortified wines of Montilla. And there is an increasingly diverse range of unfortified wines made in Sherry-like styles. The co-founder of independent Sherry bottler Equipo Navazos Jesús Barquín has coined a catch-all term for the category: TWA, Traditional Wines of Andalucía.
Equipo Navazos sprung from the insight that barrels of phenomenal Sherry were lying forgotten about in bodega cellars, divorced from the perpetual top-up solera systems, slowly gaining age, complexity and intensity. Equipo Navazos buy and bottle some of these casks in a series of numbered releases, and whether they are Fino, Amontillado or Oloroso, you can be sure they will be among the very best examples of their class. Some are so old as to be of uncertain origin. The 108 Oloroso is 'probably' 80-90 years old; no-one knows where the 109 Amontillado originally came from, as it predates the cellar it was found in. Equipo Navazos also have their own solera in Sanlúcar, from which they make their I Think Manzanilla. Pungent and nutty, suggestive of chamomile and salt-and-vinegar crisps, it is a textbook Manzanilla - and the 2023 release is especially vivid.
Ximénez-Spínola are another resident of the Sherry Triangle. On the scene since 1729, they only cultivate one grape variety: Pedro Ximénez. It is more than anything known for sweet wines, and Ximénez-Spínola make a lovely example. But it is the potential of the variety to make some astonishing dry wines that truly excites winemaker José Antonio Zarzana. Their Fermentación Lenta bottling is made from Pedro Ximénez grapes fermented to total dryness (no easy trick with Pedro Ximénez, which likes to hang onto some residual sugar), then given a stay in old French barriques. The Exceptional Harvest is made from Pedro Ximénez grapes which are allowed to keep some residual sugar, followed by a stay in old American oak barrels.
Whereas Palomino and Pedro Ximénez can both flourish in the chalky soils and Atlantic climate of the Sherry Triangle, in the sandy soils and hot, dry inland climate of Montilla-Morilés, only Pedro Ximénez thrives. Toro Albalá make amazing sweet examples, and over the decades they have become the world's only specialist in vintage-dated Pedro Ximénez. The wines remain sweet with age, but they also acquire haunting levels of complexity. /NT
We'll have four of the wines on tasting today in our Copthall Avenue shop from noon to 6pm
Offered subject to remaining unsold
