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New Releases from Equipo Navazos
	No 27. La Bota de Fino "Macharnudo Alto" (75cl) £71.25 per 6 IB. Saca of March 2011. D.O. Jerez-Xérès-Sherry. 15% alc. Limited edition of 5,000 (75cl) bottles. Bodega: Valdespino, Jerez de la Frontera.
La Bota de Fino (27) "Macharnudo Alto" is a new release from the soleras that already gave us previous editions numbered 2, 7, 15, and 18. This time we were pleasantly surprised by a solera in full bloom, at a perfect maturity point in its evolution, with an engaging, even overwhelming personality. It was begging to be bottled in its pure, raw state, after just completing the selection from the 69 butts of the solera. The average age of this wine—marked by the extra complexity given by a hint of oxidation and the fat resulting from the autolysis of “flor” yeasts—is slightly above 11 years. This is a wine for connoisseurs, bottled unfiltered in order to preserve its intense color and racy character. It can be decidedly enjoyed upon release, and its evolution in bottle will continue to delight consumers for quite a while, provided it is carefully stored. To the surprise of many, some of us fondly remember bottles of this wine opened after 35 and 45 years of storage. No 28. La Bota de Oloroso 'Bota Punta' (37.5cl) £290.00 per 6 IB. Saca of March 2011. D.O. Jerez-Xérès-Sherry. 21% alc. Limited edition of 900 (37,5cl) bottles. Bodega: Rey Fernando de Castilla, Jerez de la Frontera. Led by Jan Pettersen, Fernando de Castilla is a Sherry house that illustrates like few others the rebirth of traditional Andalusian wines in the final years of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first. In its cellars located in the barrio de Santiago we can still find an admirable oloroso solera that conveys all the authenticity of ancient olorosos from Jerez. While the solera consists in some twenty butts, the best among them by far is a superb “bota punta” located towards the left end of the row. It is a common occurrence in the traditional Andalusian cellars that the butt located at the end of a row (thus called “bota punta” or “bota de punta”) eventually acquires a singular character versus the rest of its mates in the same solera. Sometimes, especially in the case of finos and manzanillas, this is due to the extra action it sees: easier access to it translates into more frequent incursions of the venencia for sampling and tasting purposes. Or maybe its location within the cellaring facilities, with presumably better ventilation and sharper temperature and humidity fluctuations, confers this butt a special character. Other times it is the result of a deliberate decision on the part of the capataz or the winemaker. Indeed, it is traditional in certain houses to refresh this butt not with wine from the first criadera but rather with wines sourced from other butts in the same solera. As a result this bota punta develops a more intense and concentrated character, some of which in turn is periodically blended back into each saca in the proportion needed to preserve the house style. Whichever the case, it cannot be merely a coincidence that within this exceptional old oloroso solera of Bodegas Rey Fernando de Castilla it is precisely the bota punta the one that excels by its rare combination of sensuousness and depth. No 29. La Bota de Brandy (50cl) £275 per 6 IB (PRE-ORDER ONLY) Pre-order by 30th June 2011. Arriving September 2011. “Envejecido en botas de fino" (Aged in Fino casks).Saca of June 2011. D.O. Brandy de Jerez. 42% alc. (estimate). Limited edition of 800 (50cl) bottles (estimate) Bodega: Rey Fernando de Castilla. Jerez de la Frontera. Equipo Navazos are proud (as well as incredibly fortunate) to collaborate with a most impressive selection of top-notch producers whose ruling principles are quality and authenticity above every other consideration. Among them is Bodegas Rey Fernando de Castilla, a Jerez-based house where Jan Pettersen and his team (special mention should be made of Andrés Soto, another equally indefatigable Sherry ambassador) are engaged in a constant struggle to elevate these stunning wines and brandies to the place where they belong on the shop shelves and dinner tables of Spain and the world. Another reason to feel honored is the fact that our mutual trust and friendship with this house has reached the point where we have been reserved a spot there for a sort of private little altar of three butts exclusively used for decades for the noble purpose of ageing fino in a cellar in El Puerto de Santa María. We have filled them with the choicest brandies (previously aged for over ten years in American oak butts). As is the norm in Bodegas Rey Fernando de Castilla, all brandy soleras are aged at the same alcoholic degree they are going to be bottled later (in this case around 42/43% alc.), which guarantees the roundness and mellowness of this La Bota de Brandy nº 29 "envejecido en bota de fino". Only the finest wine spirits, slowly aged and mollified to a warm alcoholic degree in top-quality fino casks. No added sugars of any sort, not even through contact with the staves of butts that had previously contained pedro ximénez or sweet oloroso. This is a pure and straight product, authentic, as its natural golden colour proves. It was our goal to blend complexity and finesse, elegance and depth—concepts which do not always walk hand in hand but which we always strive to find for the wines and brandies of Equipo Navazos. And we think we have succeeded to a large extent. This is, for our personal taste (which in this case is most obviously biased, right?), the most refined and distinguished Spanish brandy ever bottled. Most of the credit, though, should go to Jan and the Rey Fernando de Castilla team...

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