Luis Pérez

What set this house looking backwards was a book by James Busby, regarded as the father of Australian viticulture. In it Busby recounts his meeting with Pedro Domecq, who explained how the El Majuelo vineyard, in Macharnudo, was managed at the time. Willy Pérez read it and decided that if what Domecq described was true, he wanted that Jerez back.

The winery was born in 2002 in Jerez, built by Luis Pérez — professor of oenology and formerly technical director at Domecq — together with his son Guillermo, Willy. In 2011 they released the first varietal Tintilla red the area could remember, and in 2017 came El Muelle de Olaso.

The wine comes from El Corregidor, which was Sandeman's historic estate in the Carrascal pago.

It is 100% Palomino Fino from a forty-year-old vineyard on barajuela albariza. 90% ferments in stainless steel tanks at low temperature; the remaining 10% is sun-dried — one of the practices by which, in the nineteenth century, strength was raised in the vineyard rather than in the cellar — and ferments in a seasoned sherry butt, taken off its lees in December.

Ageing runs four to five months on lees in tank.