2015 Ontañon Rioja Reserva
Regular price £15.99 Sale price £14.07 Save 12%Supple, full-flavoured Rioja Reserva, drinking beautifully.
Tasting Notes
Reservas are only produced in years of exceptional quality - and from the most select vineyards.
Nose
Aromas of bramble fruit with spice and lightly floral notes
Palate
On the palate, plum and ripe blackberry fruit flavours combine with ample acidity, minerality, and earthy notes. Tannins are smooth and supple as you would expect from an eight-year-old wine, and it is drinking beautifully
Production
Reservas are only produced in years of exceptional quality - and from the most select vineyards. The Tempranillo is sourced from La Pasada, and the Graciano from La Montesa vineyard. After a long maceration, the wine spends 12 months in 60% American and 40% French oak (both used and new), followed by 24 months in bottle.
Producer
Bodegas Ontañón is a 5th generation family-owned and run winery in Rioja Baja (now Rioja Oriental). Here Raquel, Rubén and Maria Pérez Cuevas continue their father Gabriel's work to develop Bodegas Ontañón into one of the most highly-regarded wineries in Rioja. Ontañón has vast swathes of vineyard in this part of Rioja. Whilst wine production in the region is typically very dependent on contracts with grape growers, the Pérez Cuevas family has seen fit to invest heavily in the purchase of its land and vines. Its 250ha is a testament to the importance it places on controlling grape quality.
The family's vineyards sit high in the Sierra Yerga mountains in the prestigious region surrounding Quel, defying misconceptions that Rioja Baja is one of the lesser sub-regions within Rioja. Many of their vineyards are planted at altitudes on a par with, or above, those in Rioja Alta and Alavesa; (La Pasada is their highest vineyard at 800m above sea level, planted in 1979 it is used for Reserva and Gran Reserva wines). The hot and dry Mediterranean climate allows for consistent ripening of the grapes with little disease and this has enabled them to pursue organic production across 57 hectares of vines.
Sustainability
Currently run by the fifth generation of the Pérez Cuevas family to carry on the tradition of grape growing in the southern part of Rioja, they take great pride in maintaining their vineyards in the most sustainable manner possible as it is their land that supports their family’s craft. As well as farming organically and producing a range of organic wines, Bodegas Ontañón employs a range of other sustainable processes.
These include controlled irrigation systems to reduce water usage and evaporation; planting vineyards in cooler, well-ventilated areas to reduce irrigation requirements and phytosanitary treatments; using plant/grass cover in vineyards to improve soil texture, to reduce tractor working hours and to lower carbon dioxide emissions; using environmentally friendly phytosanitary products that break down quickly and harmlessly; planting several hectares of pine forest near the vineyards in Ausejo and tidying and maintaining the oak forest near the vineyards in Quel. They are a carbon-neutral operation, meaning the facilities no longer emit CO2 to the atmosphere. The watering systems in the vineyards are supplied through solar power. It encourages its workers to carpool from its winery to its vineyards to reduce emissions.
Awards
- Silver at the 2021 Decanter World Wine Awards (2015 Vintage)
Specifications
Year | 2015 |
Bottle Size | 750ml |
Cultivar | Tempranillo 95%, Graciano 5% |
Country | Spain |
Alcohol content
|
14% alc vol
|
Units of alcohol per bottle | 10.5 units |
Type | Red Wine |
Allergy Information | Contains sulphites |
Cellaring potential |
Drinking now until 2030 |
Appellation | D.O.Ca Rioja |
Lustau Pedro Ximénez San Emilio Solera Familiar NV (375ml Half Bottle)
Regular price £15.99 Sale price £14.07 Save 12%Vanilla ice cream will never be the same again!
Tasting Notes
Colour
Ebony in colour with iodine highlights.
Nose
The aromas are reminiscent of figs, raisins and dates.
Palate
Enormously sweet, velvety and soft on the palate, well balanced, with a very long finish.
Producers
During the early years, Bodegas Lustau operated as an Almacenista'. The Lustau family began bottling their own sherries and exporting by 1950. In the 1980s they expanded their range and introduced the Almacenista range concept of buying and maturing casks from small bodegas to share excellent quality names and styles with enthusiasts around the world.
In 1990 the winery was bought by the family-owned Louis Caballero group. Bodegas Lustau is considered a world-class benchmark for top-quality wines. Lustau produces all styles of sherry, from Manzanilla through to Pedro Ximénez, as well as special bottlings, single cask, VOS and VORS sherries. The En Rama range, produced from select barrels from each of the three towns, is a highly anticipated release each spring.
Lustau has, over the years, won multiple medals and trophies, including Best Spanish Winery' and Best Sherry Producer' at the IWSC and the Len Evans Trophy for consistency (won in 2011 and 2016) at the IWC. Current cellar master Sergio Martínez took charge of the winery's oenological team in 2016, after more than 14 years' worth of experience with Lustau. Sergio has been awarded the Best Fortified Winemaker' Trophy by the International Wine Challenge three years in a row, following in the footsteps of the late Manuel Lozano who had won this award seven times. In 2022, Lustau celebrated its 125th birthday with a special release of three sherries in their Anniversary Collection, including a Manzanilla Pasada Papirusa, Amontillado Solera del Castillo, and a Vintage Sherry Añada 1996.
Production
Pedro Ximénez grapes are laid out in the sun after picking until they are practically raisins. After that, the fermentation starts slowly and its halted to maintain all the natural sugars.
The resulting wine ages for 12 years in contact with the air in Jerez de la Frontera.
Specifications
Year | Non Vintage |
Bottle Size | 375ml |
Cultivar | Pedro Ximénez |
Country | Spain |
Alcohol content
|
17% alc vol
|
Units of Alcohol per Bottle | 6.4 units |
Type | Fortified Wine - Sweet Sherry |
Dietary Information | Vegan & Vegetarian |
Allergen Information | Contains sulphites |
Food Matches | Serve with rich desserts, cakes and pastries, or pour over vanilla ice cream. A perfect companion to strong blue cheeses. Ideal as a digestive. |
Origin | Jerez |
Appellation | Jerez |
2022 Malaga Mountain Wine, Telmo Rodriguez MR (375ml)
Regular price £19.99 Sale price £17.59 Save 12%Tasting Notes
Colour
Golden yellow color, clean and bright
Nose
On the nose with good intensity, it presents balsamic aromas, with notes of honey, floral and fruit. All this, with great expressiveness
Palate
On the palate it is fatty, powerful, tasty, with a fruity mid-palate (peach) and good acidity, with a persistent finish.
Background
MR 2019 is a wine that rescues the historic natural sweet wines from Malaga, called Mountain Wines, which were produced in the Axarquía region of Malaga with the same grape, the Muscat of Alexandria. MR 2019 is a wine made with the limited must that is obtained by pressing the dried raisins from the old Cómpeta vineyards, located on stony soils with a steep slope, at an altitude of 550 meters above sea level. All this results in a wine to enjoy, with great personality.
The oenologist Telmo Rodríguez is a good connoisseur of world wines. After breaking away from the family winery in his youth, studying and graduating in Bordeaux, he founded in 1994, together with his friend and partner, Pablo Eguzkiza, the Compañía de Vinos Telmo Rodríguez winery. The winery produces wines from indigenous varieties in different original areas of the Iberian Peninsula: Rioja, Rueda, Cigales, Toro, Ribera del Duero, Castilla y León and Málaga, among others. But all the projects have the common denominator of focusing on the recovery of forgotten vineyards. In Cómpeta, Málaga, the muscatel grape.
Telmo Rodríguez makes this wine with a type of traditional reasoned viticulture, in which two harvests are carried out, always manually and in small boxes. One is made from the vineyard to the farmer and the second, from the farmer to the winery. Once the must is collected from these grapes, they go into small stainless steel tanks with native yeasts where spontaneous fermentation takes place. Aging takes place in stainless steel tanks for 10 months. All these characteristics make MR one of Telmo Rodríguez's great muscatels, offering us the youngest and freshest face of the varietal.
Specifications
Year | 2022 |
Bottle Size | 375ml |
Cultivar | 100% Muscatel |
Country | Spain |
Alcohol content
|
13.5% alc vol
|
Units of Alcohol per Bottle | 5 units |
Type | Sweet Wine |
Cellaring Potential | For immediate enjoyment |
Allergen Information | Contains sulphites |
Dietary Information | Vegetarian & Vegan |
Food Matches |
An ideal wine for appetizers or to enjoy after-dinner. Serve at a temperature of 8-9º C.
|
Origin |
DO Málaga and Sierras de Málaga
|
Lustau Fino El Puerto En Rama Sherry Spring 2021 Release (500ml)
Regular price £19.59 Sale price £17.24 Save 12%Intensely yellow with flecks of gold, it’s almost as if it has captured the sunshine.
Tasting Notes
Nose
On the nose, Fino El Puerto En Rama is like a breeze off the Atlantic, bringing with it notes of roasted almonds, hay and citrus.
Palate
Bone dry on the palate, with more briny character and a nutty bitterness in the tail.
Production
Lustau’s Fino El Puerto En Rama Sherry Spring 2021 Release was matured in the coastal town of El Puerto de Santa María. The consistently mild weather here is perfect for maintaining the yeast growth (known as ‘flor’) that gives Fino its distinctive flavour. Having spent five years ageing beneath the flor in American oak casks, it is bottled without filtering, fining or treatment of any kind.
Producers
Founded in 1896, Lustau has been a standard bearer for Sherry for more than a century. For more than the last few decades, it has been applying a boutique concept to its winemaking, building up a selection of some thirty wines from its own Soleras and others chosen from the stocks of the small Almacenista producers, independent Sherry artisans. These are aged in all three of the cities of the Sherry area: Jerez de la Frontera, El Puerto de Santa María and Sanlúcar de Barrameda. Now Lustau has taken this quality approach a step further, releasing two Finos and a Manzanilla all En Rama. “En Rama” means “from the branch”, the idea being that this is Sherry in its rawest and most natural form, straight from the barrel with no filtering or fining. For us, this is the finest way to drink Sherry.
Specifications
Year | Non Vintage |
Bottle Size | 500ml |
Cultivar | Palomino |
Country | Spain |
Alcohol content
|
15% alc vol
|
Units of Alcohol per Bottle | 7.75 units |
Type | Fortified Wine - Dry Sherry |
Dietary Information | Vegan & Vegetarian |
Allergen Information | Contains sulphites |
Food Matches |
It makes a stunning accompaniment to sashimi, tuna tartar, Marcona almonds, preserved lemon and quinoa salads, green olives and anything with capers in it. But we also recommend tasting it side by side with the other two wines in the range, just to experience the Sherry terroir or this collection.
|
Origin | Cadiz, Andalucia |
Appellation | Jerez |
2017 Cosme Palacio Crianza
Regular price £18.25 Sale price £16.06 Save 12%A fantastic Rioja with a touch of bling about it. Roberto Rodriguez calls this a ‘super-Crianza’, because he shepherds it from vineyard to bottle as if it were a Reserva, hand-picking the most flavour-intensive berries from high altitude vineyards, lavishing upon them the finest, new French oak barrels that money can buy and treating the wine to a long élevage.
Tasting Notes
Colour
Intense deep red colour with purple hues
Nose
Intense aromas, coffee, leather and spice and a firm concentration of black fruit sit alongside hints of ripe red fruit and sweet spiced sensations over a background of vanilla and eucalyptus.
Palate
A flavoursome wine - fruit forward with sweet tannins and a lovely long finish. An energetic wine brimming with personality, it fills the mouth with fruity flavours, wrapped in silky tannins to give a delicate, elegant, and mouth-watering wine. Persistent, with a long, wide and balanced finish.
Producer
Palacio is known as a pioneer winery for introducing the bases of modern wine to the D.O.Ca. Rioja. It is run by Cosme Palacio Bermejillo, an entrepreneur who took over the family winery in 1894 to make it the most advanced in Rioja Alavesa. He is still working today with his philosophy that tradition and modernity go hand in hand.
The Cosme Palacio Crianza grapes come from old vines of over 40 years old that are planted in clay-calcareous soils at an altitude of over 600 metres above sea level. The grapes are manually collected in 15 kg boxes and the fruit is selected in the vineyard.
Once the Cosme Palacio Crianza grapes reach the winery, they are destemmed but not crushed, and then undergo a long maceration. It then ferments in stainless steel tanks with automatic temperature control, pump overs and micro-oxygenation. Malolactic fermentation takes place in French oak barrels. Aging happens over 12 months in new 225-litre French oak barrels. The wine is then refined in the bottle for a minimum of 12 months before it is launched on the market.
Cosme Palacio Crianza is a red wine from the highest altitude vineyards in the winery. This is reflected in the wine’s good concentration and acidity.
Critical Acclaim
Tim Atkin MW: “Made and marketed as a kind of super Crianza, Roberto Rodríguez's pure Tempranillo all comes from Sonsierra vineyards over 600 metres. Dense, perfumed and textured, with lovely violet scents, fine-grained tannins, subtle wood and the freshness of its high-altitude sources. 14% alc. 2022-2029.” 93 points
- Bronze Medal 2021 IWC
Specifications
Year | 2017 |
Bottle Size | 750ml |
Cultivar | 100% Tempranillo |
Country | Spain |
Alcohol content | 14 % alc vol |
Units of Alcohol per Bottle | 10.5 units |
Cellaring Potential | Drink now - 2028 |
Type | Red Wine |
Food Matches | Cold meat, Stews, Mature cheese, Roasts, Red meat with sauce. Serve between 16-18C |
Allergen Information | Contains Sulphites |
Origin | Rioja |
Appellation | DOCa Rioja |
Lustau Manzanilla Solera Familiar Papirusa Sherry N/V (375ml Half Bottle)
Regular price £11.00 Sale price £9.68 Save 12%A bone dry Manzanilla from the bodegas of the town of Sanlucar de Barrameda.
Light, delicate & very dry
Tasting Notes
Palate
Light and fresh, very tangy, clean and crisp with just a hint of saltiness.
Manzanilla Papirusa is part of the Solera Reserve range from Bodegas Lustau. These wines come from old soleras mostly founded or acquired from 1900 until the 1930s. It is produced for Lustau by Bodegas Cuevas Jurado, which also provides wines for Lustau’s Almacenista range. At the time of bottling it is said to be around 4,5 years old.
Production
After hand-harvesting the grapes into small plastic buckets the bunches are transferred to the winery for pressing. The resulting liquid is fermented at warm temperatures (around 25 degrees) for around 12 days to give a fairly neutral, dry base wine at around 11% alcohol. This base wine is then classified depending on the type of sherry being made. For Manzanilla, a more delicate base wine is required. This wine then enters the Papirusa solera, located in the coastal town of Sanlucar de Barremeda, where it ages for around 4 years under a protective veil of 'flor' (dead yeast which prevents oxidisation) before being fined and bottled under screwcap to retain freshness.
Producers
Accolades
- 92 Robert Parker - Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
"The non-vintage Light Manzanilla Papirusa Solera Reserva (with an average age of five years in this solera) possesses an extraordinary, penetrating nose of salty brined nuts intermixed with crisp fruit, terrific acidity and intense, powerful, authoritative flavors that are ethereal in their lightness." (08/12)
- IWSC 2017 Gold Medal Winner
Lustau has, over the years, won multiple medals and trophies, including 'Best Spanish Winery' and 'Best Sherry Producer' at the IWSC and the Len Evans Trophy for consistency (won in 2011 and 2016) at the IWC. Current cellar master Sergio Martínez took charge of the winery's oenological team in 2016, after more than 14 years' worth of experience with Lustau. Sergio has been awarded the 'Best Fortified Winemaker' trophy by the International Wine Challenge three years in a row, following in the footsteps of the late Manuel Lozano who had won this award seven times.
Specifications
Year | Non Vintage |
Bottle Size | 375ml |
Cultivar | Palomino |
Country | Spain |
Alcohol content | 15% alc vol |
Units of Alcohol per Bottle | 11.2 units |
Type | Fortified Wine - Dry Sherry |
Dietary Information | Vegan & Vegetarian |
Allergen Information | Contains sulphites |
Food Matches |
It is an ideal aperitif with tapas or as a wine with a meal, with seafood or fish. The Manzanilla 'Papirusa is best served chilled, in a copita or white wine glass. |
Origin | Cadiz, Andalucia |
Appellation | Jerez |