Peter Sisseck ventures into sherry wines
The famous winemaker Peter Sisseck (of Dominio de Pingus and Hacienda Monasterio fame) has bought the solera of Fino Camborio from Bodegas Juan Piñero, as well as 8+2 hectares of vineyards in the pago Balbaína and Macharnudo.
Sisseck (originally from Denmark) has always claimed Fino sherry was the best white wine produced in Spain, but venturing into the sherry business is nonetheless an unexpected move. He established a partnership with Carlos del Rio González-Gordon, related to the owners of González Byass and also his partner at Hacienda Monasterio. It is said to become a small-scale project.
Although the brand Camborio was created by Bodegas de Terry in El Puerto de Santa María, recently the name was used for a solera started in 1974 by the almacenista Ángel Zamorano Corrales, in the Calle San Francisco Javier in Jerez. It was never released to the market directly, but it was sold to Juan Piñero in 2006, who decided to release it under the Camborio name, after buying the rights many years ago. It’s quite similar to what he did with Manzanilla Maruja. It is a fairly small solera of around 400 butts in three criaderas. The average age has been increased by Piñero and is now around 8-9 years.
The past few years Camborio was supervised (and upgraded) by Ramiro Ibáñez. It’s a very pungent, mature, saline Fino. While Sisseck took over most of the barrels, Piñero took over 10.000 liters which have been transferred to Sanlúcar for further ageing towards Amontillado-Fino.
Sisseck plans to split the stock and make two wines from separate soleras. In the end Sisseck’s intention is to make only Fino , to demonstrate the value of the vineyard in the sherry, and prove that a single vineyard sherry can be much more interesting and distinctive than a traditional, industrial sherry.
This is a very interesting announcement to say the least. It’s great to see talented winemakers from elsewhere come to Jerez and it’s particularly interesting to see what Sisseck will do to this already very good wine with mosto from the new vineyard.
More info in Spanish in El Mundo
Update: read my review of the Viña Corrales Fino by Peter Sisseck
About the Author
Ruben is a Certified Sherry Educator who fell in love with sherry some 25 years ago, but switched to a higher gear in 2013 and started writing about it. Lived in Madrid for a couple of years, now back in Belgium. I also run a whisky blog over at www.whiskynotes.be
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