Barbadillo Salicornia: Organic Manzanilla en Rama

A small plant grows across the Salicornia label. It is marsh samphire, says Barbadillo, the salt-loving plant you may know from the fishmonger. There is no plant in the glass, but there is sea salt, baked apple and a finish that stays.

Salicornia is Barbadillo’s organic manzanilla en rama. The same base wine as Sábalo, but two to three years under flor, the yeast layer that floats on the wine, in a solera with three criaderas. I tasted it with winemaker Montse Molina in Sparks 41.

Prefer listening? The whole episode is on Spotify.

What flor does

Sábalo stays in steel and never meets flor. Salicornia goes into the solera and is fortified to 15%, to keep other microorganisms off the surface and select the yeast. It is the life of that yeast that changes the wine. All remaining sugar is used up, so the wine is dry, and the flor makes acetaldehyde, which Montse recognises as baked apple, manzana asada.

I also get hazelnut, potato, bread and a little butter. In the mouth it is very dry without puckering, with the salt of the albariza still underneath. The finish goes on and on. In the episode I said some music gets to you, like a “boom”. That is how this wine hit me.

En rama means minimally filtered.

A new solera

An organic manzanilla could not be topped up from an existing solera, because every criadera has to be organic. So Barbadillo started a new one, around 2020, Montse thinks, “maybe 2022”. Sometimes they used flor from others to get it going, and she says it takes time: “It’s not the first month.” She also has old soleras, and says each solera is different. She expects the young one to become more delicate over the years.

In the episode’s opening I called Salicornia the second organic wine ever made in the Sherry region. I cannot support that. Sherry Notes wrote that Salicornia was the only organic manzanilla on the market at its November 2023 launch, in 3,500 bottles, from a solera of 100 botas (casks). Sherry Notes also mentions an organic manzanilla from 2015, Entusiástico, from Delgado Zuleta. What holds up is “one of the first”.

Two reservations

This wine has a lot of character and not everyone will like it. Montse says you have to get used to such wines, and I agree. If you do not like flor, start with Sábalo. Salicornia will not change that.

The price gap with Sábalo is eight euros, for the same base wine plus two to three years under flor. And the solera is young. Montse says part of the difference between young and old soleras will shift over the years, so this bottle is a snapshot. Montse could not say whether flor behaves differently on organic grapes, and I cannot taste the organic part apart from the rest.

Where to buy

Producer

Bodegas Barbadillo

Wine

Salicornia Manzanilla en Rama, organic

Region

Sanlúcar de Barrameda

Grape

Palomino

Ageing

Two to three years under flor, solera with three criaderas

Alcohol

15%

Price

€25.95

Importer

Granada Wijnen

Use code SherryGW10 for 10% off in the Granada Wijnen webshop, valid until 1 January 2027. I earn nothing from the code.

Taste it next to Sábalo and you can see in one evening what flor does. Next in the series: Jopo de Lobo, the sweet Pedro Ximénez.

The bottle was sent by the importer, Granada Wijnen. No payment, my judgement is my own.

Sources

• Barbadillo, Salicornia
• Sherry Notes, Salicornia (15-11-2023)
• Sherry Notes, Entusiástico
• Granada Wijnen, Salicornia
• Sparks 41, transcript