Bodegas Juan Piñero

The Maruja solera has had three owners. It belonged to Fernando A. de Terry, passed to Pedro Domecq, and in 2000 Juan Piñero bought it along with Domecq's old bodega on Calle Alcoba in Sanlúcar.

Juan Piñero made his money in construction and set up the bodega in 1992, starting by buying from Argueso a 3,000-square-metre cellar on Calle Trasbolsa, in the Barrio Bajo. For the first years he worked as an almacenista supplying wine to La Gitana; that arrangement ended some time ago and today he bottles under his own name.

The base wines come from the Pago del Hornillo, classified as Jerez Superior, on tosca cerrada albariza, and they ferment with the yeasts of the vineyard itself.

Manzanilla Maruja is 100% Palomino Fino and comes from a solera of ten stages; it is bottled from the second criadera, at an average age of eight to nine years under the veil of flor.