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.

Initiallly 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

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An introduction to Finos Palmas by winemaker-poet Antonio Flores