Lorente & Barba

Bodegas Lorente & Barba was started in 2016 by Mauricio Lorente and Julio Barba. Mauricio’s grandfather was a pharmacist who sold Jerez Quinado as well as Yohimbina, an aphrodisiac wine. His father was also a pharmacist who worked as a small almacenista in the 1970s. Eventually, the winery and brands were sold but the best soleras were kept aside and now form the basis of the new bodega.

Then in 2016 Mauricio teamed up with Julio Barba. They acquired a warehouse in the Calle Ceniza, a building that goes back more than 500 years. It is built in a style that precedes the ‘modern’ cathedral-style bodegas. It has thick brick walls, much lower ceilings and a second floor in which traditionally grain was stored (which also served as isolation against the heat of the roof).

The warehouse is built on the remains of an Arab well (13th century, perhaps earlier) which later served the first fire station in Jerez. This area of Jerez is home to some of the oldest bodegas in the city. In fact it is easy to see how old it is, because the entrance is about 1,5 meters below the current street level.

Lorente y Barba is a small company. Initially they started off with two wines, a well-aged Fino (around 12 years of age) and an Oloroso of around 18-20 years old. However they also have other types of sherry in their warehouse, which seem to be bottled occasionally.

Single Barrel bottling

They have a particular way of bottling their wines: instead of extracting wine from all barrels in the solera row and blending it (to get consistency accross different bottlings), they choose one single barrel from which all the wine is taken – around one third of the cask or around 200 bottles. The cask is topped up with younger wine of which they think it will keep the character of the barrel intact. This makes every bottle a single barrel bottling. No two wine barrels are the same, so we are encouraged to follow up the differences. There is a reference to the specific bota on each label.

Lorente & Barba sherry

L&B Fino, around 12 years old, 15% ABV
L&B Oloroso, around 18-20 years. 18% ABV
L&B Amontillado, around 20 years, 17% ABV, a bottling of 1200 half bottles for Club Contubernio in 2021
L&B Palo Cortado, a bottling for Club Contubernio in 2022
L&B Pedro Ximénez, around 20 years old

Contact

Lorente y Barba
Telar 4 (offices)
El Puerto de Santa María
www.lorenteybarba.com

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Tags: Bodega, Fino, Jerez de la Frontera, lorente y barba, Oloroso

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