Equipo Navazos – La Bota de Fino 124, ‘Un fino que va para Amontillado…’

by abuttfarting

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  1. abuttfarting

    Equipo Navazos is a bottler that goes around the greater Sherry area as well as Montilla-Moriles to find and bottle particularly excellent butts (casks) of Sherry that would otherwise languish in obscurity. Depending on where you stand, you can either find this a great way to drink some very high quality Sherry that you’d otherwise not have the chance to, or find them a bunch of goons taking credit for other peoples’ work.

    This wine is blended from 12 butts of Bodegas Pérez Barquero’s oldest Fino solera, selected for their Amontillado-like qualities. Since we’re in Montilla-Moriles, this wine is made from Pedro Ximenez, not Palomino.

    The average age of this wine is 15 years. Equipo Navazos has been bottling from this solera for a while. La Bota de Fino 84, for example, was also sourced from here.

    16,5% ABV, 2800 bottles produced. Saca 11-2023.

    This wine straddles the line between biological and oxidative aging, but the oxidative notes are stronger than in a typical older Fino or Manzanilla Pasada.

    The attack is generous and full of salinity, peach, orange peel, and hints of mango. The latter being something I often get in PX. After that it’s all oxidation. Hazelnuts, old pews, unctuousness, Brazil nuts. The finish is sharp, with chalky tannins and iodine, cleaning the palate and inviting the drinker to have another sip.

    Unctuous and extremely concentrated. The wine is not particularly high in aciditiy but makes up for it by having sapidity in spades. There’s salinity, oak spice, and a particular kind of sharpness that I get with aged Sherry that reminds me of old cheeses.

    This is a great wine. It’s complex, has a wonderful evolution in the mouth, and stays true to its Montilla roots. If you’re a Sherry drinker I would heartily recommend this. I paid about €40 for this bottle, which feels fair. It doesn’t hit the highs of the Equipo’s higher-tier bottlings, but is two steps ahead of most Finos on the market.