A mind-bending, palate-flaying sherry

published 16 May 2014

Sacrista AB, Manzanilla En Rama, Antonio Barbadillo Mateos, Sanlucar de Barrameda, Spain (£17.67, half bottle, Lay & Wheeler, 01473-313233).

Big statement: this is the finest manzanilla I have ever tasted. Granted, I am a huge fan of Hidalgo's Pasada Pastrana, not least because of its monumental class and microscopic price tag (£12.99, Majestic), but this wine is even finer.

It is an ultra-rare en rama bottling, which means that this is a lightly cold-stabilised eight-year-old manzanilla which has not been filtered at all and bottled raw'! Only 2,000 litres of epic-quality sherry were selected for this January 2014 bottling.16

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This calibre of en rama sherry is fast becoming the must-have vinous accessory for anyone who is remotely serious about wine. The aromas and flavours are mind-bendingly serious. With florals and essences that a perfumer would be proud of, this is a palate-flayingly dry manzanilla with flavour concentration which almost made my olfactory bulb explode.

You can drink it with any food you can think of, because it transcends this earthly category of victuals and exists on an entirely different plane. Only share it with people you love. If you need to make up a case for delivery purposes, buy this wine, too: 2012 Sancerre Les Monts Damnes Pierre Martin (£20.46). It is nearly as awesome.

Matthew Jukes is a winner of the International Wine & Spirit Competition's Communicator of the Year (www.matthewjukes.com).

Matthew Jukes has worked in the UK wine business for well over three decades and during this time has written 14 wine books.

Matthew regularly lectures, judges, speaks at wine conferences and runs masterclass tastings for both corporate and private clients all over the world. Matthew is also the creator of his ground-breaking initiative, the One Day Wine School, an indulgent day of tasting and learning first performed in 2006.

He has been the MoneyWeek wine correspondent since 2006 and has written a weekly column for the Daily Mail’s Weekend Magazine since 1999. His four highly-acclaimed, annual wine reports – the Burgundy En Primeur Report, the Bordeaux En Primeur Report, the Piemonte Report and the 100 Best Australian Wines – are published on his website, www.matthewjukes.com.

Matthew is one of the world’s leading experts on Australian wine and, with Brisbane-based wine writer Tyson Stelzer, runs an annual competition in Australia to find ‘The Great Australian Red’. He was made Honorary Australian of the Year in the UK at the 2012 Australia Day Foundation Gala dinner.

Matthew is a winner of the International Wine and Spirit Competition's Communicator of the Year Trophy. His thoughts, recommendations and tastings notes are followed very closely by the wine world at large.