This wine is something else, even when it comes to Sherry. I put ‘Fino’ in quotation marks in the title because that is what this wine stylistically resembles most, but it is totally its own thing. It is also not inside the Jerez-Xèrez-Sherry D.O.
The wine is made up of a barrel selection of multiple vintages of this house’s late harvest wine, called a Raya. Despite that, this wine is totally dry. It’s not fortified, AND not aged in Solera! It’s in a way closer to Champagne than to Sherry.
I don’t know exactly which vintages are blended into this Saca, but they go back to at least 2017. This wine normally ages around 4-5 years in age, but for this saca the wine maker used older wine to obtain a deeper flavor profile.
Yeasty nose with some fresh bread hints. Seaweed, too. Green olives, salinity. Besides that is an unusual ripe fruitiness which is more reminiscent of Montilla than Jerez. On the palate quite round and ripe at first, with stewed peach, red apple, and even a little pear. This round attack gives way to a rather sharp and salty mid palate, a hint of roast almond, and ends on an umami chalky note that reminds of curry spices, anchovies and of a particular kind of green olive the serve at the bars in Jerez. The 15% alcohol is well integrated.
Despite its odd background, this is consistently one of the better Finos around. It’s up there with the likes of Tradicíon and Emilio Hidalgo IMHO, and it is priced to match. The extra age of the base wines plays really well here, and I think this is a step above Saca VII and VIII. The fruitiness also gives it a kind of approachable character, making this is a great introductory Sherry.
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This wine is something else, even when it comes to Sherry. I put ‘Fino’ in quotation marks in the title because that is what this wine stylistically resembles most, but it is totally its own thing. It is also not inside the Jerez-Xèrez-Sherry D.O.
The wine is made up of a barrel selection of multiple vintages of this house’s late harvest wine, called a Raya. Despite that, this wine is totally dry. It’s not fortified, AND not aged in Solera! It’s in a way closer to Champagne than to Sherry.
I don’t know exactly which vintages are blended into this Saca, but they go back to at least 2017. This wine normally ages around 4-5 years in age, but for this saca the wine maker used older wine to obtain a deeper flavor profile.
Yeasty nose with some fresh bread hints. Seaweed, too. Green olives, salinity. Besides that is an unusual ripe fruitiness which is more reminiscent of Montilla than Jerez.
On the palate quite round and ripe at first, with stewed peach, red apple, and even a little pear. This round attack gives way to a rather sharp and salty mid palate, a hint of roast almond, and ends on an umami chalky note that reminds of curry spices, anchovies and of a particular kind of green olive the serve at the bars in Jerez. The 15% alcohol is well integrated.
Despite its odd background, this is consistently one of the better Finos around. It’s up there with the likes of Tradicíon and Emilio Hidalgo IMHO, and it is priced to match. The extra age of the base wines plays really well here, and I think this is a step above Saca VII and VIII. The fruitiness also gives it a kind of approachable character, making this is a great introductory Sherry.