Time for a break from poring over Jancis Robinson’s Companion, a trusty friend for these last few months. Time to leave the Gimblett Gravels,  Hawkes Bay and New Zealand just for a moment and fly back to Jerez to post this. By the way, Google Earth has been a fantastic way for me to have a “look around” vineyard areas I have not been able to get to in person.

I tried this wine at Vinoble for the first time, hot on the heels of my previous post.  It is an “en rama” style Manzanilla by Barbadillo. Clean and bright, it had obviously experienced a more thorough filtering than the 175th anniversary Tio Pepe mentioned below, but compared to the “conventional” equivalent – the Barbadillo Manzanilla Solear –  it was turbo-charged. They were tasted side-by-side. This “en rama” wine had a much deeper, golden colour; it was fuller bodied and absolutely packed with flavour, yeasty, salty and dry. A very morish wine!

I’ve seen an earlier “saca” of this particular Manzanilla for sale at the new-ish Laithwaites shop at Vinopolis in London. No doubt they will also have this “saca” by now.

Right, I’d better get back to studying for that WSET Dip U3 exam.