DRY AMONTILLADO, Almacenista Cuevas Jurado, Lustau. (50cl bottle)

Lustau are a house specialising in Almacenistas – small family-owned business operations, often run as a ‘weekend job’ by local people with normal jobs (accountants, doctors etc). These families traditionally sold their wines to the big Sherry houses, where they were blended into large volumes. As their wines were produced in tiny quantities and were often superb, Lustau decided to negotiate to buy and bottle them separately.
Cuevas Jurado are in Sanlúcar, home of Manzanilla. (The bodega is run by Pepe – I failed to get the full name on our visit – who is the fifth generation of his family to do this job.) So this is really a ‘Manzanilla Amontillado’ – a wine that started as a Manzanilla but was matured into an Amontillado. It’s a solera of 21 barrels, the final blend averaging 25 years old.