Make history or wait for nature ...?

In wines, when circumstances are forced, things tend to go wrong and therefore there are countless deficient elaborations that were made by force and never reached their purpose.

Jerez has always had a kind of "flattering myth" with regard to fine wine protected by the DO Jerez-Xérès-Sherry, which suggests that all wineries, simply because they are and reside in this limestone soil, have to produce biologically aged wines as the first “standard” of identity. In Ximénez-Spínola, on the other hand, not making Fine Wine has been a purpose subject to natural evolution. We have avoided aging under a flower veil, because the yeasts end up contaminating the entire winery and sometimes act uncontrollably on our still white wines, which is not always desirable.

However After the harvest of two thousand and fifteen, we began to develop a marked biological aging in our white wine barrels fermented in French oak. We put two of them aside to see how they evolved and we let nature decide. Five years and four months later we had an authentic 100% Pedro Ximénez varietal grape Fino wine: our “Jerez Seco Serie 1”. An elaboration defined by its varietal aromas, limestone minerality, Atlantic breezes, sapidity, French oak and evolutionary capacity in the bottle ... A nuanced surprise in a true aging wine.

This wine would be equally excellent even if in Jerez we have been making Fino wine from Pedro Ximénez grapes for centuries. The before and after of our "Jerez Seco Serie 1" is an objective fact based on its quality, not on its historical value.

There are very few cultivated hectares from Pedro Ximénez in Jerez so clearly this wine could have been considered a rarity. But it is not exactly a "rare" wine - rare is not always excellent. This wine is full of qualities that make it a very serious elaboration, with an extraordinary ability to evolve positively in the bottle. Many say that it is a historical elaboration ... Of course it is a before and after in the possibilities of the Pedro Ximénez grape in Jerez.

It is natural that doing something like that has called the Attention to the Denomination of Origin itself, because certainly nothing like it had ever been done by any of the many protected wineries. But the value is not in the anecdote, but in the extraordinary quality of a product obtained naturally. This wine would be equally excellent even if in Jerez we have been making Fino wine from Pedro Ximénez grapes for centuries. The before and after of our “Jerez Seco Serie 1” is an objective fact based on its quality, not on its historical value.

History is made by itself when they are respected the delicate buds of a vineyard, when the water is allowed to soak the earth and fill each grape grain with minerality, when the "veil of yeasts" that seeks oxygen in a white wine barrel is allowed to live ... And above all, the History is made by itself, when we do not strive for a wine to be what we want it to be, but rather respect its nature and let time pass and be what it has to be: minutes, hours, days, months, years ... A long wait that is worth it.