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Wine of the Week

Organic sherry, yes it exists

Delgado Zuleta, the oldest family owned winery in the Sherry region, bottled the first organic manzanilla in 2016, which they have launched under the name Entusiástico.

It is the result of a three years joint venture with the organic vine grower Pepe Cabral with organic palomino grapes from a 1 hectar vineyard in the Burujena pago in Trebujena to the north-east of Sanlúcar.

Entusiástico is a classic manzanilla aged in very old barrels, using the traditional criaderas and solera system, but using organic grapes and organic wine alcohol. It’s also labelled “en rama”, meaning that it’s only lightly filtered, as close as possible to how the wine is in the barrel. It comes in a transparent glass bottle, with an organic cork closure and a very distinctive purple label showing a painting by the Russian painter Igor Andriev.

The first release was only 1200 bottles, but the interest made the producers take the decision to expand capacity in the coming years.

The wine started after the 2012 harvest and has been matured under flor for two years in two barrels taken from the La Goya manzanilla solera. In the following years the butts have been refreshed with new mosto twice a year – a slower rate than La Goya for instance, resulting in a more concentrated wine in less time. The solera has expanded over the years as well.

I tasted it at the release. More recently there was a second edition, now officially under the Delgado Zuleta brand with a different presentation. This tasting note is thus based on this label.

 

Manzanilla Entusiástico (Delgado Zuleta)

Golden yellow colour. Very fresh on the nose, with flowery notes, herbs, yeasty, some citrus (lemon), but with mature apples too. In the mouth it’s completely dry, grapey, quite light in concentration, with the fruits from the nose coming back.

Price: Low

Food: Traditional seafood and fish platters from the region, but also salads, vegetarian dishes, ceviche and light meat

 

3 Comments

  1. Stacey
    Stacey 25. May 2021

    Hello,
    I’d love to know where I might find this wine for purchase please, could you help me with that?

    Thank you
    Stacey Rae

  2. Vidar Kenneth Johansen
    Vidar Kenneth Johansen 28. May 2021

    Hi Stacey,

    I don’t know where you are located. If you are in the UK I know that C&D Wines and Berkman Wine Cellars are importing Delgado Zuleta’s manzanillas.

    If you tell me your location I can try to find out for you, if you don’t prefer to do it yourself. I can think of wine-searcher.com as a possible source. Otherwise you can write directly to the producer and ask about an importer near you, delgadozuleta@delgadozuleta.com.

    Best regards,
    Vidar

  3. Joanne Riella
    Joanne Riella 13. June 2023

    We are a food manufacturer looking for organic sherry wine to purchase in bulk for a new product development. Do you have a rep in US, and do you offer in bulk purchases

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