Category: wine tastings

BurNarj Sparkling Orange Wines

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burnarj

[click on image to enlarge]

I was treated to a private wine tasting yesterday, along with friends Fiona @Seville_Writer and Amelia @TravelCuisine1, arranged for us by BurNarj @Burnarj, a young family-run winery in Palma del Rio, Córdoba. BurNarj – a pormanteau of “burbujas” (bubbles) and “naranja” (orange) – is the world’s first and only sparkling orange wine made from 100% orange juice. All other orange wines presently on the market are grape wines that have been infused with orange juice, zest, etc. BurNarj wines are made using the traditional méthode champenoise which, aside from champagne (obvs), is also used for making Spanish cava. There are four wines in the Burnarj range: Brut Nature (dry 11% alc), Brut (slightly sweet 11% alc), Semi-Seco (semi-sweet 11€ alc) and a Semi-Seco light (7% alc). It is recommended to drink these wines well-chilled between 1º – 3º C.

BurNarj general director Alfonso Diéguez arrived at Travel & Cuisine headquarters with a cooler full of wines and a lovely selection of snacks. We started off tasting the bone dry Brut Nature, which paired very well with the smoked salmon and jamón Ibérico (Alfonso also recommends it with Rio Frío caviar from the same region), and which ended up being everybody’s favourite. I found the Brut to be a “neither here nor there” wine and was surprised to find I liked the Semi-Seco light second best out of the four. At 7% alcohol it would be a perfect brunch wine, like a ready-made mimosa. Also great for picnics, come to think of it.

Alfonso talked us through the process and explained the different characteristics of each wine with obvious passion. I was surprised to learn that it takes 5 kilos of oranges (2 litres of fresh juice) to make just one bottle of wine. It was also interesting to find out more about the origins of the company and the labour-intensive méthode champenoise. Just two years old, the winery is already selling well in Japan, Poland, Mexico and the UK, as well as at home in Spain. At 11.90€ – 13-50€ retail this would probably be a special occasion wine for most people, but I do recommend giving these wines a try, especially the Brut Nature and the light Semi-Seco.

For more information and to visit the BurNarj online store…

BurNarj Website
Pol. Ind. El Garrotal, Calle E, parcela 5
Palma del Río, Córdoba
Tel. 957 644 059 / 672 289 105

 

 

Colonias de Galeón

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colonias galeon
Last week I was invited to a special wine tasting of the new 2013 Colonias de Galeón at Flores Jamones y Vinos. A young wine (50% CabFranc, 30% Syrah, 20% Tempranillo) it was still punchy at 13.5% alc/vol, but was also fresh and light, making it easy to pair with the delicious selection of tapas we were offered from the menu at Flores Gourmet.

colonias galeon collage
Colonias de Galeón is a young winery, started in 1998 by Sevillanos Julián Navarro and Elena Viguera. Their vineyards are situated in the Sierra Norte de Sevilla and the vines are grown naturally, without pesticides. It’s a family affair and you can find Julian and Elena (and sample their wines) at the organic market held the second Saturday of every month in the Alameda. You can also enjoy their wines in over 50 tapas bars and restaurants in Sevilla. Federico Flores is the sole distributor.

Colonias de Galeón Website

Finos Palmas 2013

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finos palmas
I am very excited to have been invited to tonight’s Finos Palmas tasting event in Sevilla, which will also be live-streaming in Madrid, Barcelona and Jerez, starting at 19.00 Spanish time. This is the third year that Gonzalez Byass has done the limited edition Palmas bottlings and, like their Tío Pepe en Rama, these wines have become very trendy. As they are bottled direct from the cask, with no filtering or refining, this means that the wine is best drunk within six months.

finos palmas 2013Initiallly destined for Tío Pepe these specially chosen casks were judged to have potential for extra ageing. Finos Palmas casks are marked with a vertical chalk line and the number of “palm branches” proportional to its age. These elegant old finos have been selected cask by cask by Gonzalez Byass winemaker and master blender Antonio Flores in collaboration with Master of Wine Sarah Jane Evans.

Fino Una Palma is an evolved fino with six years of biological ageing under a still active covering of flor. From a solera of 142 casks only three casks (numbers 1, 9 and 11) have been selected.

Fino Dos Palmas has been ageing over eight years in contact with a thinner layer of active flor on the surface. From the solera of 150 casks, only two (numbers 7 and 26) show this distinctive feature.

Fino Tres Palmas comes from a single cask (number 30) out of a 150 casks solera, and after ageing for 10 years still preserves traces of live flor that continue to permeate the wine.

Fino Cuarto Palmas is the jewel of the Solera Museo, containing just six casks (this year only number 3 was chosen). It is an extraordinary and very limited edition 45-year-old amontillado.

Finos Palmas 2013 LiveStreaming from 19.00h (Spanish time)
Twitter hashtag: #FinosPalmas

[youtube=”http://youtu.be/CuMbCdZqedI”]

An introduction to Finos Palmas by winemaker-poet Antonio Flores

Jerez en V Cata

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cata jerezenv[click on image to enlarge]

As part of my ongoing sherry education, stemming from my World Sherry Day ephiphany, I was thrilled to be invited to a special sherry tasting hosted by Gonzalez-Byass at Catador Sevilla. And especially as our host was going to be Antonio Flores (@Hacedordevinos), not only head winemaker and master blender for G-B but also one of the most passionate people I’ve ever met when it comes to talking about their work. And as Antonio’s work involves creating some of the most amazing and prestigious wines in the world, well, it was both a pleasure and a privilege to see the master in action.

catador sevillaThis was a wine tasting event organised by Mónica Trujillano from El Comensal to which various bloggers, journalists and hospitality professionals had been invited. I loved the venue, Catador, which is smack in the middle of the Barrio Santa Cruz. It’s an open and minimalist space, with wall murals depicting both the famous Tío Pepe barrels and the vineyards surrounding Jerez. I’ve been to a few sherry tastings over the years, here in Sevilla, but nothing prepared me for how much I would feel engaged and inspired by Mr. Flores. He is both eloquent and passionate, and also quite a showman, knowing how to gently seduce and inspire his audience. With such an excellent product you wouldn’t think this sort of thing would even be necessary, but in fact sherry remains one of the lesser understood Spanish wines. People from abroad often assume that sherry is the sticky sickly sweet stuff their maiden aunt would haul out every Christmas but in fact there many varieties ranging from bone-dry finos to the sweet raisiny Pedro Ximenez, and I want to learn more about all of them.

On this occasion we sampled ten wines including Fino Tío Pepe, Amontillado Viña AB, Alfonso Oloroso, Leonor Palo Cortado (recently chosen one of the top 100 wines in the world by WAWWJ: World Association, Wines & Spirits, Writers and Journalists), Apostoles Palo Cortado, and Noé Pedro Ximénez. As a special treat we finished the evening by sampling Cuatro Cortador & Gonzalez-Romano, both more than 100 years old, while Catador put on a spread of some fab charcuterie and cheeses.

Watch for my Introduction to Sherry Tours, which I hope to start offering in September. Now that I am smitten with this amazing wine I really want to share the love.

Feria de la Manzanilla (in Sevilla)

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feria de la manzanilla
The plan for yesterday was to take the bus to Sanlúcar de Barrameda to visit their Feria de la Manzanilla for the first time. Unfortunately the bus service to Sanlúcar was less than feriante friendly with one bus at 10 am and the next not until 2 pm and when I mentioned this on Twitter my friend and sherry expert Annie Manson said that, knowing me, I’d end up creating my own Feria de la Manzanilla here. So that’s what I did.  🙂

Sanlúcar de Barrameda is located at the mouth of the Guadalquivir river where it meets the Altantic and, along with Jerez and El Puerto de Santa María, forms the famous Sherry Triangle in the Cádiz province. It is also home to the oldest horse races in Spain, which take place just before sunset along the beach during the month of August. Another Sanlúcar event I have yet to witness. But I digress…

My companion yesterday was Peter Tatford Seville Concierge and at one stop Eduardo Blanco Different Spain also briefly joined us. Since my idea was to recreate being in Sanlúcar the obvious place to start was Restaurante Barbiana which not only features wines and seafood from there but also makes the best tortillitas de camarones I’ve ever had outside Sanlúcar. We started with a nice plate of jamón Ibérico de Bellota paired with a manzanilla fina from Bodegas Barbiana, served at a perfectly chilled 1ºC. For our tortillita I chose an amontillado to go with it which worked very nicely.

Then we went on to La Moneda, which was where we ment up with Eduardo. There we tried two different manzanillas (Solear and La Gitana) with fried salmonetes (which I was told came from Sanlúcar) and a very nice soupy rice with gambas, clams and monkfish.

For our third stop we taxied over to Taberna Chani in Nervión to try their manzanilla en rama from Bodegas Baron, which we paired with fabulous fried boquerones (also from Sanlúcar) and some grilled Almadraba tuna cheeks.

And then we were done. I have to say that although the food and wine were all very pleasant the whole Feria de la Manzanilla in Sevilla thing didn’t feel as successful as my recent impromptu World Sherry Day event because I didn’t feel like I’d actually learned anything new. Although I asked lots of questions about the different wines, and about which foods they would go best with, the response at these bars wasn’t as friendly or enthusiastic as I found last week. I mean, I know you can get palo cortado from Sanlúcar, and also some good dessert wines, but these weren’t suggested to me even though I’d told everyone I was trying to learn more about Sanlúcar wines. Bit of a shame, but ah well…