My august wines.

- Valdespino Jerez Seco. DO Jerez y Manzanilla- Sanlucar de Barrameda (4.45 EUR)
L060091
Not much colour. Not much aromas. Not much taste. Not much anything. Extremely soft and disappointing.

- Viña Bosconia Reserva 1996. R. López de Heredia. DOC Rioja (11 EUR)
Autumn rehearsal. Going to the winter. You know, the gentle breeze of the summer whisper us the coming winter. Exhausted. Exhausted. Exhausted. I think that I need a nice dinner and a deep breath. While cooking I remember the short story of this bottle. Bought in the winery, in my first trip as oenogeek to buy wine; I realized as I came back and saw the the only place where I could store the bottles was under the spiral staircase. That days I lived in a rent penthouse.
I thought that I was so goof to buy wine... and let the cases under the staircase. If you’re reading this, I think you know this feeling. Well, here I am, uncorking this bottle some years after. A wine that’s like and old friend. Always kind.
Rod Stewart with ’The Great American songbook’, Carla Bruni and Frank Sinatra in CD player. The wine in the stem and a piece of pork meat knew as ’secreto’ (¿hidden? ¿secret? does it exist where you’re living?) with grilled figs and a reduction of this wine.
Hmmm, licquorized red fruits, vanilla, cigars, tobacco, coffe grains, leather, wet wood... many things, all of them in the right place and a precise acidity as a backbone.
By the way, I find it less coloured, but I dare that it’s due to the conservation and that this bottle has suffered some movings.

- Manzanilla en rama - Barbadillo Saca de Primavera DO Jerez y Manzanilla - Sanlucar de Barrameda (7.05 EUR)
Big, exciting, vibrant, intense. Dark golden, green olives, bitter almonds peeling, grass, cinamonn. Oily and weighty sip. It’d be great if every manzanilla were ’en rama’ or ’pasada’

- Laurent Tribut 2003. AOC Chablis (14.25 EUR)
Problems with the manzanilla bottle makes me open this bottle. The issues were with the cork but nothing TCA related. I just broke it when I was uncorking and I had a manzanilla shower! It’s half-bottle, so you can imagine that I only had about 3-4 sips of manzanilla. Let me say this sips were great... but just 3 or 4 :-(
About this bottle, I really enjoyed in the preceding vintage, but regarding this one I only can say it’s fine. Many tropical fruits aromas, but less much complexity and vivid than preceding vintage. Let me insist, it’s fine, but ";much less"; than the preceding vintage.
If the price goes near 15 EUR and not 12 I’d think a lot before buy another bottle. This bottle doesn’t worth the price, but the preceding vintage worth every euro paid for it.

Regards,

Jose