La Parrilla Palomino El Pinto 2024

La Parrilla Palomino El Pinto, natural white wine from the sherry grape in Jerez.  The Palomino grape provides the base for most of the dry sherries in the Jerez region. Here it is made into a dry table wine (something which is becoming more and more common) but maintains some distinctive sherry notes on the nose and palate.

The grapes are manually harvested and whole-bunch pressed into stainless steel tanks, where they undergo fermentation at cool temperatures with indigenous yeasts. The wine also undergoes a natural malolactic fermentation which softens the style. After a brief period on the lees, El Pinto Palomino is bottled without filtration or fining, just a little sulphur. The wine is bright golden yellow, aromatically suggestive of dried apples and yellow cherries, has good acidity for a Palomino, chalky minerality and the sherry like saline lick on the finish.  There is also something very subtly oxidative about the wine, again making it a lower abv and easy drinking dry sherry alternative.

The vineyards of Hacienda La Parrilla are part of a 500-ha estate in the San Jose del Valle, inland, 35 km south-east of Jerez, in beautiful countryside close to the Sierra de Cadiz. The estate is made up of old olive trees, vineyards (17ha), pasture (where Iberico pigs roam free) and other crops. The estate is owned by the Rebuelta González brothers, who built the winery in an old olive mill, within their charming ranch house which dates back to 1881.  The vineyard is situated on a fairly steep slope on pure white albariza soils, and is farmed organically (not certified).