Eric Asimov, especialista en el vino y la gastronomía de nuestro país y crítico del diario The New York Times, ha confesado en las páginas de ese periódico sus doce experiencias memorables con el vino en 2021. Esas botellas, a las que también califica de inolvidables y en alguna caso de mágicas, que le han permitido descubrir nuevas zonas y productores o comprobar qué estaban haciendo viejos conocidos.
Asimov reconoce que la mayor parte de esta aventura se desarrolló en su casa. Fueron los vinos los que le llevaron de viaje. “Ha sido otro año extraño con limitadas posibilidades de viajar. Pero los buenos vinos pueden acercarte el mundo”, concluye. Entre los países que ha recorrido de esa manera estaba, como cabía esperar, España. Dos de esos doce vinos, con bastantes cosas en común, son de nuestro país.
El primero, un blanco de Sanlúcar de Barrameda con crianza bajo velo y sin encabezar, elaborado por Ramiro Ibáñez. El segundo, una manzanilla seleccionada por el Equipo Navazos entre las más criadas soleras de la bodega Miguel Sánchez Ayala. Fue embotellada hace diez años y quienes la eligieron ya se mostraban entonces convencidos de “que estos vinos tienen un gran potencial de envejecimiento si se guardan en apropiadas condiciones de conservación”.
2021 Seen Through 12 Unforgettable Wines
- Bodegas Cota 45 Ube Las Vegas El Carrascal 2017
This year I’ve been inspired by wines like this one from Cota 45 in the Jerez region of southern Spain, sherry country. The proprietor, Ramiro Ibáñez, is fascinated by the terroir of Jerez, a quality sadly neglected in the production of mass-market sherries, except for a small group of serious-minded producers who seek out the pure expression of albariza, as the chalky white soils are called.
El Carrascal is one of a series of wines made by Mr. Ibáñez that are meant to express the albariza terroir. Like sherry, these wines are made from the palomino grape, but unlike sherry they are not fortified.
Carrascal is from a single vineyard, Viña Las Vegas, in manzanilla territory, near Sanlúcar de Barrameda. It seemed to express the savory, fragile essence of manzanilla, demonstrating that fortifying the wine — adding neutral spirit to raise the alcohol level to 15 percent or more — was unnecessary.
Wines like this open possibilities, requiring us to re-examine what we think we know about a region and the potential of its wines.
- Equipo Navazos La Bota de Manzanilla 32 Saca de October 2011
Speaking of Jerez, I had the pleasure of visiting the region in 2012 and was particularly happy to spend time with Jesús Barquín and Eduardo Ojeda, the two men behind Equipo Navazos, a sort of high-end négociant that was spearheading a sherry renaissance.
In an industry dominated by mass production of generally mediocre, inexpensive wines, they were bottling small quantities of extraordinary sherries that demonstrated how much of the conventional wisdom about sherry was wrong.
Chief among the beliefs is that fragile sherries like manzanilla must be consumed almost immediately upon purchase or they will deteriorate. But here was this sherry, bottled in 2011, which I opened in October at a picnic in Central Park after it had rested in my wine fridge for most of a decade.
It turned out I drank the same wine, La Bota de Manzanilla 32, in 2012, finding it gentle but intense, with great finesse. Nine years later it was brilliant, its salinity and minerality concentrated by the aging, yet still a ravishing example of intensity without weight. Maybe hyperfiltered, mass-market sherries can’t age, but this one? Absolutely.
Más información: https://www.nytimes.com
Foto: Ayuntamiento de Sanlúcar de Barrameda