BY AL DRINKLE
The following transmission was sent to the Metro Mates from Jerez, Spain in February, 2024. Footnotes have been added so that the rest could be left intact.
Dear Mates,
I'm writing to you from a ballroom full of opulent early 20th century furniture and invaluable art in the Valdespino¹ buildings — soaked to the bone. The runoff from my pants and shoes is pooling on the floor, but I’m warming up with the help of a bottle of amontillado that was kindly placed on my makeshift desk. The poniente² is raging and even if I had an umbrella this morning, it wouldn't have helped since the rain is "falling" horizontally, and with incalculable velocity. I'm told that this is one of the most intense Atlantic storms in years, but the ground badly needs the water so the minor inconvenience that it's caused me is very worthwhile.
Over the past couple days I’ve snacked and sipped my way through Jerez, confirming that this is my favourite drinking city on the entire planet. I’ve been haunting tabanco³ after tabanco; taking in flamenco performances; lurking in the bodegas of Emilio Hidalgo, La Guita (in Sanlúcar) and Valdespino; and trying to learn as much as possible about the fundamentally soul-enriching, life-affirming wines of this wonderful place.
The storm began last night while I was engaged in a nightcap conveniently close to my hotel, and before long the rain was coming down in sheets. I listened to the wind rattle the old building throughout the night, and as I stood at a café's bar eating breakfast this morning, the venue's entire patio set was blown into the street by the unrelenting wind! In defiance of the weather, I checked out of my beloved hotel and coerced a taxi driver to brave the squall in order to escort me to Bodegas Luis Pérez which, unlike most sherry cellars, is out in the vineyards⁴.
My time at Pérez has exploded my brain in a way that's only happened to me three or four times in my career thus far. You all know that I've been a rabid, insatiable partisan of sherry for many years, but now I sit here questioning everything that I thought I knew — and it’s both humbling and exhilarating.
I don't even know where to start... The handsome, articulate and fearsomely intelligent Willy Pérez is at the helm of the estate, and he led me through what I suspect I’ll look back on as a life-changing tasting. Willy’s father, Luis, was the winemaker/oenologist at Domecq until 2002 when he decided that sherry wines had strayed too far from their albariza⁵ roots, thus attempting a minor rectification in the form of his own winery. Richard can tell you how unpopular sherry was in 2002, and what a radical move it would have been to attempt to commercialize a rebellious variant of the prevailing styles at that time. (Arguably, it’s barely less radical now, although Pérez has had a notable influence in the region and surrounding areas).
Willy Pérez
In the meantime, Willy was rabidly educating himself on the wines of Jerez, both by working through the local bodegas, and by devouring the 100+ historical sherry books in his father's extensive library. (Willy's own book — co-authored by his friend Ramiro Ibáñez of Cota 45 — on the history and terroir of the region will be coming out in the near future, and will allegedly double as a barn door). He realized that considering 3000 years of uninterrupted Jerez winegrowing, what we discuss as the mainstream, “WSET" or even “Metrovino" notion of sherry wine really only tells the story of post-1969. Prior to then — especially if you go back to before phylloxera⁶ — a curious wine lover might have learned the following things about the region:
* Instead of fortification, a wine's alcohol level was usually bolstered through soleo, or the sun-drying of the grapes.
* Harvesting was always conducted in passes, like in the Mosel or Vouvray. This was even stipulated by the Denominación de Origen (henceforth “DO”) law until 1969!
* Flor⁷ was optional, as it is now, but certainly didn't coincide with the now mandatory 15% minimum alcohol for these “biological” wines. Willy claims that 15% isn't actually the ideal alcohol degree to host flor — as we already know from the Jura, not to mention Schätzel and Griesel — but that it ensures the bacterial stability necessary for biological winemaking on an industrial level.
* There were some 119 recorded “indigenous" grapes in Andalucia prior to phylloxera, whereas now only three cultivars are authorized in the Jerez DO.
* The solera system was introduced in no small part to homogenize the wines. This isn’t a categorically bad thing, but it very much precludes artisanal production.
* There was an obsessive fixation on the best vineyard sites, a focus that has of course been perpetuated in Burgundy and Germany among other regions, but has largely been forgotten in regards to Jerez (with some notable holdovers, Valdespino being the most visible example). However, there was a time when knowledgeable wine lovers would have had their favourites amongst Macharnudo, Miraflores, Carrascal, Panesa, Anina, etc.
At the time of writing, Luis and Willy Pérez are practicing regenerative farming, experimenting with own-rooted planting (I wonder how vocally they’re doing this, as my understanding is that the European Union forbids this), isolating and highlighting variants of albariza soil, and making site-specific wines with minimal intervention while they resurrect the aforementioned techniques and values of Jerez’s bygone days. But none of what they’re doing or saying would matter much if it weren’t for how beguilingly intense, bravely original and utterly delicious the wines are — one really must taste them to believe it.
Willy loves and respects the sherry wines that have been enthralling us at Metrovino for all these years, and in sharing his approaches to farming and winemaking I don’t mean to suggest that he looks down on producers who make sherry in the “conventional” way. He just knows that an artisanal upstart in Jerez needs a different path, and was amazed and inspired to discover his future in the forgotten history of the region.
I absolutely cannot wait to share these wines with you mates. In the meantime, keep raging! With lots of sherry-laced kisses from Jerez,
-Al
Photo Credit: Bodegas Luis Pérez
Four months later, our first shipment from Bodegas Luis Pérez has arrived and a question that wasn’t asked or answered in the letter above needs to be posed. Namely, who are these wines for? Like most of our imports at Metrovino, they’re primarily for us, but for this model to be sustainable, we hope that many of you enjoy them as well!
First and foremost, these wines aren’t just for those of you who have a pre-existing love for sherry. We’ve worn out our voices stressing that sherry is a type of white wine (while admittedly encompassing a distinct and unique array of styles), and should be embraced and served as such. This goes threefold for Pérez’s wines. Before you ask, they are bone dry, and with a seamless flor influence that tightens their structures and enhances the minerality without overriding the eloquent dialogue between grape and soil. Let’s go through them one by one. (Please note that our selection for this order is meant to serve as an introduction, and a visit to the bodega would unveil an extensive range on offer).
2022 El Muelle de Olaso $29
The entry level white, and the veritable epitome of vino de pasto — a resurrected Jerez term translating as “pasture wine”, but in usage referring to something that’s eminently drinkable and a great compliment to food. From the Carrascal and Macharnudo vineyards, 90% of this is fermented in stainless steel and the remaining 10% in a sherry cask with flor. Blended and bottled young, this zesty enterprise is saline and stony, splaying towards a hint of creaminess and controlled opulence, but the salty zing of the albariza gets the final say. If you’re intimidated, just think of this as an inordinately delicious, medium-bodied, multi-purpose white wine from southern Spain!
2022 La Escribana $44
From the legendary Macharnudo Bajo vineyard, this is fermented in stainless steel before spending a year on lees in sherry casks with flor. The aromatics are an expansive horizon of fresh cream, chestnuts, the perfect tortilla chip and boundless maritime salinity — and the palate takes these beguiling qualities even further. I noted a pleasant “oakiness” at first, and asked Willy if there were a couple of new barrels in the mix. He smiled and responded that the barrels were all about 80-years-old! So whatever I’m smelling is from the spellbinding influence of natural factors. It’s an intense experience, both viscerally and intellectually, and it’s no exaggeration that several times since tasting this in February, it’s been my first thought upon awakening in the morning. Lovers of white Hermitage or Burgundy — especially those who romanticise about the rarely-achieved zenith of Grand Cru Chablis — should be very interested.
The Caberrubia vineyard boasts albariza de Barajuelas soils, which Willy describes as “a laminar loam that resembles a pack of cards”. Though the vast majority of the fruit comes from a single harvest season, it’s bottled as a non-vintage wine in order to place all importance on the vineyard site. Essentially a non-fortified fino, the grapes are harvested in various passes for almost two months with ripeness varying wildly from start to finish. Soleo, or sun-drying of the grapes, is utilised to varying degrees, and fermentation takes place in very used barrels, followed by 42 months of aging under flor. It smells sweet and sunny with a tingle of chalky bitterness, causing one to wonder what is flor, what is albariza and what is the Palomino grape! In the end, it doesn’t matter because they’re all combining to make this extraordinary, resonant, palate-encompassing wine of illimitable breadth. Admittedly this is primarily for lovers of sherry, both present and future — but I believe that we’re all sherry lovers, even those of us who don’t know it yet.
Luis and Willy have put great effort into reestablishing the Tintilla grape in their vineyards. Its history in Jerez can be traced back to 1657 and they make five different versions, but I found the Balbaína to be particularly striking. It’s harvested at night by hand, and fermented in steel and open-top wooden barrels with 60% whole cluster before spending a year in 7th use casks. Luminescently purple on the nose, if offers stark and brisk flirtations of bright red cherries and wild strawberries on the edgy, stoney and salivating palate. I love it. Mentioning to Willy that this invigorating style achieves the freshness, intensity and vibrancy that so many of my customers want in a red wine these days, he said, “yes, sure, but can you taste the albariza?!? That’s my real goal!”. I was at a loss for words because I had no idea how to look for this influence in a red wine… Perhaps it’s in the admirable tension? Regardless, this is a fundamentally incredible wine and my plan is to drink my way through several bottles until the albariza influence is like facial recognition to me.
Photo Credit: Bodegas Luis Pérez
¹ A prominent sherry producer, represented in Alberta by Metrovino.
² The cool, easterly Atlantic wind of Andalusia, usually ushering in rainfall in the winter.
³ The small, rustic sherry bars of Jerez.
⁴ Most of the region’s bodegas are housed in one of the towns of the oft-referenced “sherry triangle”, namely, Jerez de la Frontera, Sanlúcar de la Barrameda and El Puerto de Santa María.
⁵ The most prized soil type of Jerez, consisting primarily of chalk that appears in varying proportions with limestone, clay and sand.
⁶ The vine-root-eating insect, native to North America, that decimated the vineyards of Europe in the late 19th-Century. Phylloxera appeared in Jerez in 1894.
⁷ The “flower” or veil of saccharomyces yeast that benignly forms on the surface of fino and manzanilla sherry in barrel, informing its unique flavour.
