Equipo Navazos Fino Sherry En Rama

Equipo Navazos Fino Sherry En Rama $8/ 32

Where: Jerez de La Frontera, Andalucia, Spain

Who: Equipo Navazos

What: 100% Palomino Fino

Tastes like: Very dry, light, delicate. Savory, amost salty notes with a very aromatic nose of apple skins and stonefruit.

Pair with: Almonds, olives, aged cheese, salty seafood, light dishes.

WINE REVIEW

“The unfiltered NV Fino Navazos July 2013 is a (new) regular release for export markets showingthe bottling date, and offered in half bottles. This is the July 2013 version. It has a surprising aromatic nose, with flowers, apricots and peaches, almost tropical notes of candied fruits (aromas that you often find in the stoppers of botas that have an intense biological activity) that would make the delights of a wide audience.

The palate is round and light with pungent flavors of hay and dry straw, and a slightly saline finish.”  -Wine Advocate Note that our current release is March 2014. This is not the “vintage” but when the wine was bottled.

WINE NOTES

This wine is a Fino en Rama from Jerez de la Frontera, the main town where sherries are produced, and in fact from where the word 'Sherry' comes, since this was the historical name of the town. It is 100% made with palomino fino grapes from the vineyards Cartera and Macharnudo Alto, in one of the noblest vine areas or 'pagos' in the Sherry District, located four kilometers West-Northwest of Jerez de la Frontera.

The Fino En Rama Navazos ferments with local yeasts and, after a small fortification so as to increase its alcohol content from ca. 12.5% to 15% abv, the wine enters the solera system where it has aged under a layer of flor for an average of five years. It is therefore a well aged fino, indeed far from the ten or more years of age of Equipo Navazos' La Bota de Fino (whose last release was no. 35), but also exceedingly above the minimum legal age of two years. As a result, this fino is pungent and lively, but also complex and profound.

A relevant feature is that it is bottled 'en rama' (as actually are all sherries by Equipo Navazos). This means that no aggressive means of filtration or clarification have been used in the bottling process of this wine, only a minimal light filtration, without any cooling, so as to prevent that the yeasts of flor get into the bottle. What the wine lover will find inside any bottle of Fino En Rama Navazos is a most exact example of what she/he would taste directly from any of the casks from where it has been drawn. This is a bet for authenticity and a comeback to the tradition of bottling the finos as they are, keeping their natural complexity and depth, as well as it natural colour, far from the extreme paleness and clarification that has been the rule in the last few decades.

ABOUT THE PRODUCER: Equipo Navazos

Equipo Navazos selects specific butts of special finesse and complexity from some of the most prestigious bodegas in the Sherry and Montilla regions. These are bottled almost privately for a group of wine lovers. The selections made by Equipo Navazos belong without any doubt among the greatest wines of the world.