Montse Molina answered a newspaper ad. That is how a pharmacist with a master’s in viticulture and oenology ended up in Sanlúcar de Barrameda in the late nineties, knowing almost nothing about manzanilla or Jerez. Thirty years later she makes every wine of Bodegas Barbadillo, including three organic ones: a dry, unfortified Palomino, a manzanilla en rama and a Pedro Ximénez.
I tasted all three with her over video, me in Amstelveen, her in Sanlúcar.
Who is Montse Molina
She came for the white and red wines. Barbadillo wanted a research and development department, and she was hired to start it. “I knew almost nothing about Manzanilla or Jerez,” she says, and then: “I’ve been here for 30 years.”
Barbadillo has been a family company since 1821 and, she says, still is. I called it the largest manzanilla producer in the Marco de Jerez in an earlier piece. When I asked what it is like to make the wines of a house with this much history, she talked about responsibility: very old soleras, very old olorosos and amontillados, built up by many people before her. She calls the house “very, very traditional, but also very, very innovative”, and points to a white wine launched in the seventies. Organic, to her, belongs in that line.
Why organic sherry needed a new solera
In the cellar, Montse says, organic barely changes the work, with one exception: the Salicornia and the Pedro Ximénez. Both needed a new criadera, a row of casks in a solera system. You cannot top up an organic wine from casks that hold non-certified wine, so the system started from nothing.
In an old solera the flor, the yeast layer on top of the wine, has been selecting itself for decades. A new criadera starts without that head start. Sometimes they borrow flor from other criaderas to help it along, and then they wait: “It’s not the first month.” They started around 2020, she thinks, “maybe 2022”. How the system works is in my guide to the solera and criadera system, which I promised in the episode.
Organic in the vineyard
I asked whether the organic line carries a message about protecting nature. Montse answered like a technician: they work “in a logical way” in every vineyard, and with organic grapes you use fewer products. Different challenges, same job. Some years there was no organic wine, or only a small volume. In a recent year the spring rain was strong enough that not every organic vineyard made it into the line. Barbadillo keeps organic and conventional wines in separate lines, and it is not converting everything.
I came away unsure what organic changes in the glass. I asked whether flor behaves differently on organic grapes. She could not say it does. Barbadillo has DNA data on its yeasts (“you can see the DNA of almost each one”), with a high diversity, and she puts any differences down to the grapes in the field. So her answer points to the grapes, and to a solera that is still young. That may be reason enough to buy these wines, but it is a different reason from “this tastes different because it is organic”.
The tasting: Sábalo, Salicornia, Jopo de Lobo
Montse’s order is simple: taste from left to right, from young wine to manzanilla to PX, because alcohol and sweetness build in that direction.
Sábalo: the entry
Organic, 100% Palomino, 13.5% ABV, a vino de pasto. Montse herself is not sure what the term means beyond a young wine for drinking. This one ferments in stainless steel, never sees flor, and is filtered only to be bottled clean. The grapes come from organic vineyards in Pago Burujena, between Sanlúcar and Trebujena near the river, and from a second vineyard closer to the sea.
It is the 2023 harvest, so almost two years in bottle. Montse says it starts shy, with apple and pear, and that chamomile and an iodine saltiness come up in the bottle. I get chamomile, apple, pear, some stone fruit and the sea. She describes the freshness as saltiness, not acidity: low acidity, lots of salivation, what she calls sapidez (the Spanish word for savouriness).
This is the wine I would give to anyone who says “sherry, I don’t like it”. Some people call it “sherry light”, she says. I dislike the term, since it suggests a lesser thing, but I see why it works as a first step. With food, she has tried it with different cuts of tuna, the fatty ones and the dry ones, and says the wine adjusts each time.
Salicornia: the comparison
Salicornia takes the same base wine further: two to three years under flor in a solera with three criaderas, fortified to 15% to keep other microorganisms off the surface and select the yeast. It is a manzanilla en rama, meaning bottled with minimal filtering. The name is Spanish and Latin for marsh samphire, a salt-loving plant, according to Barbadillo.
In the glass you get the same identity with an extra layer. Montse points to baked apple, manzana asada. That smell is acetaldehyde, which the flor produces. I get hazelnut, potato, bread and a little butter. There is no sugar left. It is very dry without puckering, and the finish keeps going: “long, long, long”.
In the episode I compared it to music that goes “boom” while other music stays in the background. I stand by that. Montse says herself that these wines take getting used to, and she is right. If flor-driven manzanilla is not for you, Sábalo is the better buy, and Salicornia will not convert you.
I said three things in the episode’s opening that I cannot back up. I called Salicornia the second organic wine ever made in the Sherry region, and Montse the first with an organic Pedro Ximénez. When I put that to her, she said, “I don’t really know if we are the first.” The sources I found support neither claim. Sherry Notes called Salicornia the only organic manzanilla on the market at its launch in November 2023, and mentions an organic manzanilla from 2015, Entusiástico, from Delgado Zuleta. Barbadillo calls Jopo de Lobo the first sherry in its own organic range. So I now say “one of the first organic manzanillas”. I also said picking samphire is forbidden by law. I found nothing to confirm that.
Sherry Notes also gives 15% ABV, 3,500 bottles, 100 botas (casks) across three criaderas, and says Sábalo and Salicornia belong to the organic line Cielo, Tierra y Mar, which began with Sábalo in September 2019.
Jopo de Lobo: the special one
Organic Pedro Ximénez from sun-dried grapes, named, Barbadillo says, after a threatened salt-loving plant on the Andalusian red list. All the sugar comes from the fruit. The grapes lie in the sun, the water leaves and the sugar concentrates. They press, ferment briefly, fortify to 15%, and age it in an oxidative solera with full casks: four to five years, Montse says. Barbadillo’s own launch release from August 2023 mentions three years in American oak. The release may be giving a minimum. I go with the winemaker’s figure.
I had been told to serve it cold, six to eight degrees, and I did. Montse’s reasoning: with all the sugar, a lower temperature makes the mouth “less big”. I taste very rich dark fruit, a little blossom, coffee and toffee. To her it recalls morning coffee. Her favourite pairing is spicy food: the wine calms the heat, and the heat makes the sugar feel lighter. I like rich French cheeses next to it.
Albariza: where the salt comes from
I asked where the saltiness in Sábalo comes from, since it never saw flor. Her answer is the soil. All the Palomino stands on albariza, the chalky white soil of an old sea, rich in calcium carbonate and silica. Flor amplifies it in the manzanilla, she says, but the young wine already has it.
Would the grape taste the same elsewhere? Not completely, she says: you get the soil’s saltiness and Palomino’s delicacy together, and Palomino on another soil would probably feel lighter. I once had a South African Palomino that was warmer and fuller, with tropical fruit. That does not fit her “lighter”. Whether that came down to soil, climate or the winemaker’s style, I can’t say.
How do the vines survive 40 degrees? The soil is deep and holds the winter and spring rain like a sponge, and old vines send their roots down to it. The canopy grows like an umbrella over grapes that hang close to the ground. See also the Sherry Triangle and albariza soil.
Young solera versus old solera
Salicornia comes from a young solera, and Barbadillo has old ones as well. Do they taste different? Yes, she says, partly because of the grapes and partly because of age, and she expects the age part to shift over the years. “But at the end, each solera is different.” Even inside one building, the Levante side and the Poniente side make different manzanillas. The saca (the withdrawal of wine for bottling) and the rocío (the topping up) run from one side to the other every four months. Usually they blend both, because the blend is rounder and more complex. Sometimes they bottle the sides separately, so people can taste the difference. More producers should do that.
Where to start with sherry
Her advice: start with white wines from albariza, some of them fermented in casks that held manzanilla, where yeast is a tool and does not make the wine. Then move to manzanilla, “the easiest style of wine to understand” on that route. Try different ones, because some people do better with a young manzanilla and others with an old one. “It’s a matter of trying and looking for what you like.” My guides to vino de pasto, manzanilla and sherry for beginners cover the styles.
Where this is going
They are making different wines from different pagos in different zones, and testing how those behave when fermented in casks. Nothing to announce yet. Visitors are welcome at the bodega, which she says has buildings from the 17th or 18th century. Check the visit page for tours and times; Montse gave some times in the episode but was not sure of them.
Try the wines
Granada Wijnen, Barbadillo’s importer in the Netherlands, sent me the wines and introduced me to Montse. What I say about them is mine. In their Barbadillo range you can find Jopo de Lobo (a 0.375 l bottle), Sábalo and Salicornia. The shop lists Jopo de Lobo with three years of ageing, as Barbadillo’s release does; Montse said four to five.
Use code SherryGW10 for 10% off in the Granada Wijnen webshop, valid until 1 January 2027. I earn nothing from the code.
The wines were sent by the importer. No payment, my judgement is my own.
Full transcript
The transcript is verbatim from the recording, so it still contains the opening claims I corrected above (“second organic wine”, “first organic Pedro Ximénez”, and the remark about picking the plant).
Open the full transcript (English)
Lightly edited from the automatic transcript for proper names and wine terminology. Speaker labels and timestamps follow the recording. It is here for accessibility and search.
Jeroen Vonk [00:00] There’s a plant that grows in the salt marshes around Cádiz. Sailors used to carry it on their long voyages to keep from getting sick. It’s so fragile that picking it is now forbidden by law. Barbadillo named a wine after it. And that wine is the second organic wine ever made in the Sherry region, from a house that has been making wine since 1821. Today I’m talking to the woman who made it. Welcome to Sparks by VinoVonk. I’m Jeroen. Sanlúcar de Barrameda is not a place you would expect a revolution. This is one of the most traditional corners of the wine world. Soleras that are hundreds of years old, cellars where the barrels are repaired by hand, a way of working that has barely changed in two centuries. And in the middle of that, Bodegas Barbadillo, founded in 1821, still family owned, the biggest wine company in Sanlúcar. They decided to start making organic wines: the first organic Pedro Ximénez the region has ever seen, and a dry, unfortified Palomino, which is a bit like a jazz musician suddenly recording a folk album. The person behind all of this is my guest today, Montse Molina. Montse Molina has been a winemaker at Barbadillo since the late nineties. Every wine that leaves that house is hers. Her motto is simple: clean and pure wines. One thing before we start. These wines were sent to me by Granada Wijnen, the importer of Barbadillo in the Netherlands, who also introduced me to Montse. Thank you very much for that. What I think of the wines is entirely my own, as you’ll hear. Montse, welcome. It’s really good to have you here. Hello Montse, thank you for your time. How are you?
Montse Molina [01:46] Fine, thank you.
Jeroen Vonk [01:48] How is the weather in Sanlúcar?
Montse Molina [01:50] The weather is beautiful today. We have a sunny day with 32 degrees, so it’s not so high.
Jeroen Vonk [01:56] Okay, not so hot. That’s better for the people, and better for the grapes.
Montse Molina [02:00] Yeah, also.
Jeroen Vonk [02:02] You have been the winemaker at Barbadillo since the late nineties. How did you start, and what has kept you here all these years?
Montse Molina [02:13] Yes, well, I saw an advertisement in a newspaper. It was a long time ago, so we did these kinds of things back then. I was looking to be an oenologist. I’m a pharmacist, but I also did a master’s in viticulture and oenology. I was looking for a job and I came to Sanlúcar, but I knew almost nothing about Manzanilla or Jerez. I came for the whites and the reds, to start a research and development department. And then, well, I’ve been here for 30 years.
Jeroen Vonk [03:04] Yes, a long time.
Montse Molina [03:05] Barbadillo has been a family company since 1821, and it still is.
Jeroen Vonk [03:06] How does it feel to make the wines of a house with so much history? Does the history ever get in the way? Is there anything you’d like to change, but can’t?
Montse Molina [03:24] Well, it’s a big responsibility for me to be here, because of all this history, and because we have a lot of old wines from those times. So I have very old soleras, very old Olorosos and Amontillados, with a very beautiful style, made over all these years by a lot of people before me. There are a lot of people here, not just me. But we try to continue with the style of the wines and to capture the essence of the company and the place, because Sanlúcar is really special, with the manzanillas and the style of manzanilla in Sanlúcar, and especially at Barbadillo.
Jeroen Vonk [04:17] And you also started making organic wines, certified organic. But it was all completely new. Is that the hardest part for a traditional company, a new, organic way of working?
Montse Molina [04:47] Not really, because of the company. Barbadillo is very, very traditional, but it’s also very, very innovative. We started making a white wine in the seventies that was very successful for a long time. We did reds, we did sparkling, we did a lot of different types of wine. Doing organic was a challenge in the vineyard, especially because you have to grow organic grapes. But in the winery it’s not really so different. It’s different in the case of the Pedro Ximénez and the Salicornia, the manzanilla, because we had to start a new criadera. We couldn’t use a criadera with wine without organic certification.
Jeroen Vonk [05:45] You had to start with a completely new system. Is it difficult to work organically with flor? I figured it must be, because the sea and the grapes are different when you’re organic.
Montse Molina [06:09] I don’t know. We have a big range of different types of yeast. You can see the DNA of almost each one, so we have a high diversity of yeast. I can’t say it’s different. They are different because the grapes are different in the field. It’s quite difficult for me to say. That’s the way I think.
Jeroen Vonk [06:41] But is it harder with organic grapes than with conventional grapes?
Montse Molina [06:45] Not so much. It’s hard to start a new criadera. Because when you have a criadera, it’s like a machine that is working. You have the selection of the yeast in each cask, so you just have to keep the ecosystem inside. And when you start with new casks and new wine, sometimes we can use the flor from others to help start the movement and to get a feel for the style of the manzanilla. It’s not the first month. You have to be patient, wait, and feel the style of the wine. It will also change with the years.
Jeroen Vonk [07:43] And you’re the first winemaker to make an organic Pedro Ximénez, and the second is this one, I think, the Salicornia. This is a manzanilla. But how did other producers react to you going organic?
Montse Molina [08:03] I don’t really know if we are the first, you say, but I don’t know. There is not so much to think about this. It’s one more product to show to the people who are interested in organic grapes.
Jeroen Vonk [08:25] So for you it’s nothing special, it’s just something new. Working on new things is normal.
Montse Molina [08:34] Yes, for us it’s normal to have new things every time. So I think it’s hard work in the vineyard, and sometimes we don’t have the grapes. I remember that sometimes we didn’t make the organic wine, or just a small volume, because we had problems in the vineyard. But it also rains, so it depends if you have strong rain. Last year we had that, in spring, so in the end not all the vineyards go for the ecological.
Jeroen Vonk [09:17] The whole organic line carries a message about protecting nature. Does that change how you work in the vineyard? Is it a message, or is it really the way you work?
Montse Molina [09:36] We always work with, I don’t know how to say, with logic, in a logical way, in a vineyard. But for doing organic, you can use less products for growing the grapes. So it’s a different way to do it, you have different challenges, and you have to work with this.
Jeroen Vonk [10:11] We have three wines: the vino de pasto, the manzanilla en rama and the Pedro Ximénez. What is the best order to taste them? For the people listening and watching, why is that the perfect order?
Montse Molina [10:31] Yes, the best order is the one you have on the table, from the left hand to the right hand. So start with the young wine and then the manzanilla, because of the alcohol and the power in the mouth, which is higher. And end with the Pedro Ximénez, also because of the alcohol and the sweetness that we have inside.
Jeroen Vonk [10:57] Yes, because there’s a lot of sugar in it. Shall we taste the wines?
Montse Molina [11:04] Yes. Yeah.
Jeroen Vonk [11:06] Let’s start with this first wine. It’s organic. The alcohol is 13.5%, 100% Palomino. Can you tell me something about this wine? I thought vino de pasto was new. Well, new to me. I’ve known it for a few years. But you said you were already making a dry white wine in the late seventies.
Montse Molina [11:34] Yes. I don’t know what vino de pasto really means, different from white wine. Just a young wine for drinking. So maybe sometimes vino de pasto has a little bit of yeast on the surface, or it’s fermented in casks of manzanilla, or something like this. That would be a style much closer to Jerez, or to the smell of Jerez and Manzanilla. But in this case it’s vino de pasto with less of this flavor, because it’s fermented 100% in a stainless steel tank, and it’s en rama, so we only filter it to go clean into the bottle and nothing else. The special thing here is that the wines come from the organic vineyards. The organic vines in Pago Burujena, which is here between Sanlúcar and Trebujena, near the river. And then another vineyard, much nearer to the sea. So the pagos are very, very fresh. And we also have in the Sábalo a special saltiness or freshness in the nose, and in the mouth too.
Jeroen Vonk [13:06] Yes, when you smell it, it’s like the sea with lots of flowers, lots of chamomile, lots of freshness. On the nose you think, okay, this is a white wine, maybe a strong white wine, but it’s very light and very fresh. For me it’s also a very good introduction for people who think, oh, sherry, I don’t like it. I say, try this.
Montse Molina [13:38] And then some people call it “sherry light”. Yes, it’s like a step. And this is the 2023 harvest, so it has almost two years in the bottle. This strength in the nose comes from that, but it adds some richness in the nose. When we start bottling, it’s much more like an apple or a pear. Yes, very shy. And inside the bottle it keeps increasing, and all this chamomile and the saltiness of the iodine appear. And when you smell the manzanilla, you will see that there is a link between them.
Jeroen Vonk [14:29] If you buy it, can you keep it for a while?
Montse Molina [14:36] Well, yes, but not now. It’s for drinking yet. If you buy a recent harvest, you can wait.
Jeroen Vonk [14:49] Yes, you can wait. Salute! Salut! It’s very fresh, round, full. You have different forms of complexity, but not hard. Very light, very elegant. A lot of chamomile again, but also apple, pear, some stone fruit.
Montse Molina [15:27] And I think the saltiness as well. You feel a lot of salivation, I don’t know if that’s the word, and a very low acidity. We call it sapidity, from the Spanish sapidez. It’s fresh, but not because of the acidity. It’s because of the saltiness. It’s light, but with a lot of flavor.
Jeroen Vonk [15:55] And it’s also good with food, because there’s a fish on the label, so it pairs very well with fish, I think. I like the saltiness in this, because it works with more kinds of food, even meat.
Montse Molina [16:12] Yes, and it helps a lot with the food. Sometimes we did the exercise of trying different types. For example, one time it was a tuna. The different parts of the tuna, some are much more fatty and the other side is more dry. And using the same wine, the wine changes to help you each time. So it works when the fish is fatty or heavier, but it also helps when the dish is drier.
Jeroen Vonk [16:53] And I think it’s a special thing with the Palomino.
Montse Molina [16:55] This always happens. At the end it goes with you, and it doesn’t change the flavor in your mouth of the dish you are eating very much. So it’s easy for people to drink, because it always helps. And it’s not the protagonist, it’s not the main thing, because it adapts to the food.
Jeroen Vonk [17:16] Yes, it goes with everything. I really love it. This wine never saw the flor, only stainless steel. But where does the saltiness come from? Is it the soil?
Montse Molina [17:36] It’s because of the soil. We have the albariza, the soil that we have for these plants. All the Palomino is on albariza, which is a soil that comes from an old sea that we had in this zone. So we have a lot of calcium carbonate and a lot of silica. At the end it makes the saltiness in the mouth. This is a young wine, with no yeast. When we add the yeast, it increases the saltiness, as we will see in the next wine. But even in the young wines we have this sensation of saltiness.
Jeroen Vonk [18:17] If you take the same grape to a different place, you get a completely different wine.
Montse Molina [18:24] Not completely, because the Palomino makes a good… In the sensation that you have in the mouth, you have both things: the saltiness because of the soil, and the delicacy of the Palomino. If you don’t have the Palomino, you don’t have the same sensation in the mouth, because maybe a little more acidity changes the thing. But in another soil with less saltiness, the Palomino will maybe be lighter. Your sensation in the mouth will be lighter, I think.
Jeroen Vonk [19:00] I once had a Palomino wine from South Africa. And I thought, yes, I get a bit of Palomino, but it’s warmer, fuller, more tropical fruit. I had almost forgotten. But yes, that’s what terroir does to a wine, to the grapes. Very interesting. Shall we go to the next one?
Montse Molina [19:24] Yes.
Jeroen Vonk [19:30] And that’s the Manzanilla en Rama, Salicornia. You see a slightly different color. Can you tell me something about this wine?
Montse Molina [19:48] So this wine is made from the same wine that we had before, because this vino de pago was really the wine that we used for making a manzanilla. For a long time they didn’t drink that wine. In this zone they call manzanilla simply “wine”. And the base wine, they call it Sábalo, the first wine. They call it mosto. Mosto, or must, it’s the sugar. It’s not a wine, it’s a step before the wine. Now, the Salicornia comes from Sábalo, with more or less two or three years of aging, under a layer of velo, in a solera system with three steps, three criaderas, and the yeast. So we add alcohol up to 15, to avoid that other microorganisms live on the surface, just to select the yeast. And it’s because of the life of the yeast that the wine changes.
Jeroen Vonk [21:16] On the nose it’s the same identity: full, rich, floral, salty. But you have an extra layer, like a punch. With music, sometimes there’s music that really gets to you. And sometimes there’s music that’s okay, you can listen to it, but sometimes it’s like: boom, it’s in there. And for me, that’s what happens here. This goes straight to your head. Do you have that experience too?
Montse Molina [22:07] Well, it has a lot of personality. I think these wines you have to get a little bit used to. That’s why you told me before that Sábalo is like the first step, and then you can go up. Because you have a very strong nose, and in the mouth too, because of the alcohol, and the saltiness is higher. And it’s dry. We don’t have any sugar here, or even the glycerin that we have in Sábalo from the fermentation. All the rest of the sugars the yeast eats for living, and it produces the acetaldehyde, which is the smell of apple. Dried apple, apple in the oven. Yeah, manzana asada.
Jeroen Vonk [23:09] Also some hazelnuts and potatoes, and bread, with apple and some butter too. I love this, because it’s very dry, but it doesn’t make your mouth pucker. There’s a lot going on in your mouth, and the saltiness makes your mouth feel heavier and gives a really beautiful sensation. And I love the salt.
Montse Molina [23:56] And a lot of aftertaste, yeah? It’s long, long, long, long at the end.
Jeroen Vonk [24:03] Sometimes I ask people, “Would you like a glass of sherry?” “No, I don’t like sherry.” “Okay, would you like a glass of a very dry Spanish wine?” “Oh yes.” And then they get a glass of sherry. “Oh, this is nice, what is this? Is this sherry? Oh wow.”
Montse Molina [24:20] Yes, because if you put the sherry sticker on it, they say, “Oh, that’s heavy.”
Jeroen Vonk [24:28] But in your opinion, for years sherry was a wine that people really forgot. Do you feel that’s changing? And where do you see it? Because in the Netherlands you see more and more sherry, in restaurants. You have sherry bars. You can even do sherry education here in the Netherlands now.
Montse Molina [25:02] Yeah, I think so, because people are much more interested in wines and in understanding wines than 25 years ago. So when you understand the history, you understand the wine, and you get used to it in the mouth a little bit. At the end you have a lot of sensation with the wine. It helps a lot with the food, and it’s a very high level of happiness when you drink it.
Jeroen Vonk [25:35] And for this one you also had a new solera and criadera system. In which year did you start? Was that around 2020?
Montse Molina [25:50] I haven’t checked. I think it was 2020, yes, maybe, or 2022, maybe. Around 2020.
Jeroen Vonk [26:07] Sherry comes from different years, and you have an old system. I’ll put information about it in the show notes. Normally you use very old vintages, but because you’re organic, you had to start right away. But when you compare it with older systems, you see a lot of differences. This is a young solera system, and you have an older solera system. Do you find it very different in taste?
Montse Molina [26:56] Yes, they are different. I think there is a part because of the grapes, and there is a part that comes from the age of the solera system. And I think the second part is going to change with the years, and maybe we will feel it much more delicate than now. I think it’s because we had old wine in it, and it helps a lot with the sensation at the end of the mouth. But at the end, each solera is different, so it’s quite difficult to say it’s because of this or because of that. Even in the place inside the building, the bodega, you have a style of manzanilla in one part different from the other. But the wine is the same. We make a saca and a rocío in a criadera that goes from the Levante side to the Poniente side, for example, for 20 years, every four months. So it’s dynamic. You have a style on the Levante side and you have a style on the Poniente side. So at the end, all of them are different.
Jeroen Vonk [28:17] And do you mix everything together, or do you make a separate line from the Levante or the Poniente side?
Montse Molina [28:28] Yes, usually we make a mix of them, because when you taste each of them and you keep in mind what they are like, the blend of all together is always better. You have much more complexity and it’s rounder. But we sometimes make special bottles, just to show what I’m saying. People want to learn, and I think it’s better than me speaking about it. It’s better for people to try, and they can draw their own conclusions.
Jeroen Vonk [29:12] This is the organic line, but is the whole bodega now working organically, or do you have separate lines of organic and conventional?
Montse Molina [29:29] We have separate lines. We are not going organic with all… No.
Jeroen Vonk [29:36] No, maybe in the future. Who knows what will happen. Shall we go to the last one?
Montse Molina [29:42] It’s beautiful, the color.
Jeroen Vonk [29:52] A completely different style, beautiful color. And it’s Jopo de Lobo. Normally people think you should drink this at room temperature. But you told me to serve it cold, between 6 and 8 degrees. For me that was very different. Normally I chill it too, but for me this was different. You have to serve this cooler than the other wines.
Montse Molina [30:33] Well, it’s a matter of the sensation that you have in the mouth. In this case it’s 17 degrees, I think, 17, no, 15 degrees. But we have all the sugar here. So if you lower the temperature, the mouth is less big.
Jeroen Vonk [30:58] Yes, the nose is very rich, concentrated. You smell it as very heavy, but at the same time it also has freshness. Is that because of the soil again?
Montse Molina [31:16] Yes, because here we don’t have the yeast. This is oxidative aging.
Jeroen Vonk [31:33] This one is very rich, very full. Dark, only dark. Dark fruit, and again some blossom. Ah, it pairs well with rich cheeses, with French cheeses. But you can also pair it with some savory food. Not the whole night, but you can try.
Montse Molina [32:03] Yes, definitely.
Jeroen Vonk [32:04] What is your favorite pairing with this wine?
Montse Molina [32:07] With this wine, we taste it with something spicy. In English, picante, it’s spicy.
Jeroen Vonk [32:16] Yes, spicy food.
Montse Molina [32:18] Yes, and it calms the spice in the mouth. So if you combine them, you feel the food as less spicy, and you feel less sugar in the PX also. So it’s a different balance in both.
Jeroen Vonk [32:35] Yes, that would be a great combination. And can you tell me something about how you make this wine?
Montse Molina [32:42] Yes, well, this is a wine where all the sugar comes from the grapes. We let the grapes sit under the sun, so the water goes out and the sugar concentration increases. And then it’s pressed, and it ferments just a little bit, because with so much sugar it’s difficult for the yeast to do. We add alcohol up to 15, and then we go to the bodega for the same solera and criadera system, but in this case with the casks completely full, and with all the movements of sacas and rocíos. After more or less four or five years of aging, it’s a middle age, yes, it increases all these toffee or coffee notes, and chocolate. Because at the beginning it’s like a prune. I don’t know what the name is in English.
Jeroen Vonk [33:54] Yes, it has coffee notes. I thought, what is it?
Montse Molina [33:59] But it reminds me of morning coffee. Yes, it comes from the oxidative aging.
Jeroen Vonk [34:07] You are the winemaker of all these wines. How different is it to make a Pedro Ximénez or a manzanilla? Is working with the casks and with the grapes completely different?
Montse Molina [34:28] Yes, but it’s what we do here all the time, so it’s nothing special.
Jeroen Vonk [34:46] Okay, and all the grapes are grown on white albariza, chalky soil, and that gives a lot of salt. But summer is very hot. If you look at the weather, it’s normally 40, 45, maybe more.
Montse Molina [35:09] Not usually 45, but 40 in the last years, yes.
Jeroen Vonk [35:15] How come the vines don’t die, when there’s no water?
Montse Molina [35:22] Yeah, well, we have water inside the soil, because this is a very deep soil, and if you have old vines the roots go down. It’s like a sponge. So when it rains in springtime or in winter, we have all the water inside the soil, and the vines can reach it. You can feel the heat outside, but you see that the leaves are green and they can resist, and you see the grapes. And also we make an umbrella with the leaves. In the north of Spain, or even in the north of Europe, you see the leaves as a solar panel, with all the grapes perfectly in the sun. We don’t do this. We make it just like an umbrella, and the grapes are near the soil, to be protected from the sun.
Jeroen Vonk [36:34] If someone is listening and thinks, okay, I want to try sherry, which wine should you start with?
Montse Molina [36:47] I recommend to start with all these white wines that come from albariza soil, and then some of them fermented in casks of manzanilla, for example, with a little bit of yeast, but just as a tool. The yeast does not make the wine. And then going to a manzanilla, I think it’s the easiest style of wine to understand, going this way. And try different styles of manzanilla, because for some people it’s better to start with a young one, and others say it’s better to go to the oldest manzanillas, that they are easier to understand. But I don’t know. It’s a matter of trying and looking for what you like.
Jeroen Vonk [37:47] You don’t only make this white wine, you make other white wines, you said.
Montse Molina [37:53] Yes, we make another white wine. For example, we can show Alba de Balbaína, that we make from a pago called Balbaína, which is very near the sea. This is also fermented in a stainless steel tank, but it has five months on the lees of fermentation. But then we make another one called Mirabrás, and this is fermented in casks of manzanilla, with yeast on the surface, but only for six months or something like this, not so much. And then we add the manzanilla.
Jeroen Vonk [38:40] So you have different kinds of options to taste with.
Montse Molina [38:45] A lot of them.
Jeroen Vonk [38:47] And what are you working on now that excites you? Something you can tell us about, or maybe not.
Montse Molina [38:57] No, we are doing different wines from different pagos. We are working on this now in different zones, trying to understand how they go with the fermentation in casks, and trying different places.
Jeroen Vonk [39:17] Yes, new things, but nothing yet. Is there something I didn’t ask that you wanted to tell?
Montse Molina [39:22] No, I don’t think so.
Jeroen Vonk [39:31] Okay, well, if people want to visit you, can they go to your website and make a booking, or are you open every day? Can people just knock on the door?
Montse Molina [39:44] Yes, yes, every day. On the website, which is barbadillo.com. For the visits, we have them every day. In English I think it’s at 12, then we have one at 1, and in the afternoon it’s also open. It’s a very good visit because it’s very beautiful, the place, with all the style of the bodega buildings. We have had bodegas since the 18th century or 17th century, so it’s very beautiful. And Sanlúcar too: we are in the north, and we have in front of us Doñana and the river. It’s a very beautiful place, so they are very welcome.
Jeroen Vonk [40:38] I’ll put some links in the show notes. Montse, thank you for your time. Salute.
Montse Molina [40:45] Thank you, salut!
Jeroen Vonk [40:46] This was a new episode of Sparks by VinoVonk. Let me know which of these wines you want to try first. Salute.
Montse Molina [40:54] Salute!
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