| Sherry
La Bota
The wines of the Equipo Navazos - JEREZ
It all started with a tasting. In December 2005 a small group of enthusiasts, including Jesus Barquin (by day the Director of the Andalusian Institute of Criminology at the University of Grenada, but also a highly-respected food and wine critic) and Eduardo Ojeda (technical director of Grupo Estevez, the owners of Bodega Valdespino and the La Guita sherry brand) were visiting the bodega of Miguel Sanchez Ayala in Sanlucar. As they tasted their way through the cellars they discovered 65 butts of exceptionally fine old amontillado, which had lain undisturbed for over twenty years.
The prospect of rescuing such undiscovered riches was irresistible and after much tasting they selected the equivalent volume of a single butt (600 75cl bottles) to be bottled privately for their own enjoyment. That first tasting also provided the inspiration for the name of the endeavour, Equipo Navazos, 'Team Navazos', referencing the local name for the tidal farmland which surrounds this historic bodega. With sly humour, the initial bottling paid hommage to an Edgar Allan Poe short story, The Cask of Amontillado.
The success of this Amontillado meant that now the hunt was on for more 'sleeping treasures', each time selecting a small range of individual barrels from within a top-flight solera. In 2006 they discovered and bottled a fino from bodegas Valdespino and a pedro ximenez from Perez Barquero in Montilla. These were followed in early 2007 by a Manzanilla and an Amontillado once again selected from the cellars of Miguel Sanchez Ayala.
How are these wines different? Even when compared with better-known commercial bottlings from the same soleras these sherries display an exuberant sense of their own personality; each wine has its own distinct character. Perhaps it should be no surprise that they are so expressive, as unlike almost all other sherry sold, these wines have not had their flavours and aromas dampened by heavy filtration. Quantities are tiny – a reflection that this was initially intended as a private wine club for consumption among a small group of connoisseurs rather than a commercial venture – with each lot rarely exceeding 3000 bottles.
There is admirable transparency too. Each release is numbered and dated to allow for the comparison of different bottlings drawn from the same solera. And against all conventional wisdom, these are sherries which are actually designed to be capable of aging attractively in bottle. Two years after release, a bottle of La Bota de Manzanilla #8 displayed no loss of freshness and had instead gained a new, Montrachet-like depth and complexity. Just do not dream of serving these outstanding wines in the traditional narrow copita or tasting glass: like any other fine wine, these sherries deserve room to express themselves fully.
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