Bodegas Menade ADORADO 1967

Country: Spain
Region: Rueda
Varietal(s): Verdejo, Palomino
Style: Solera System since 1967
Alcohol: 15.5%
Serving Temperature: 8-12 degrees

“Adorado first saw the light of day back in around 1900, when wine was a form of nourishment and the Rueda region was still full of grizzled, old time growers with plenty of stories to tell who were making a rugged living from their ancient mishmash of ancient, gnarled Verdeja and Palomino plots. It reflects their traditions, was, and is now again, made with the most severe technology of all: effectively, virtually none, other than hard, backbreaking, manual work”. Made in a rudimentary solera system and on the basis of flor (a thin surface layer of waxy ivory coloured indigenous yeast cell foam that protects the wine from air contact and naturally constitutes itself each new vintage) every year a proportion of wine (saca) is removed from the end of a whole scale of butts (criaderas) to be replaced proportionately all along the line, such that the wine released each year – which has been oxidizing and thereby growing in colour and flavour in the intervening butts - is always identical (and thus popularly called rancio).  Adorado is therefore our family’s resuscitated celebration of and tribute to our regional roots.

Harvesting:

 Strictly hand-picked and invariably brought to us in due and correct boxes provided in advance by a series of mule trains!

Vinification: 

Pressing is effected in a suitably historic vertical press that dates back to 1900.The musts are totally natural and therefore cloudy, and fermentation kicks off naturally by virtue of the yeasts in/on the skins. Following fermentation, the finished wine is fortified with white wine spirit in order to achieve 2 or 3 extra degrees of alcohol prior to its ageing. As per the above, the wine develops an actural flor, usually around springtime, and, once this has dissipated, the ageing /oxidative/criadera process resumes as per each year in the cool cellars of our old underground bodega in La Seca. The ‘mother’ solera of Adorado dates back to 1967, but our first saca was only in 2018 when we took the decision to reactivate this formidable style.

Stabilization: 

The wine is simply as it is, with no clarification or filtration.

Colour: 

Amber and old gold.

Nose:

True and typically rancio in style in a generous, nutty, full flavoured oxidative style akin perhaps to the once upon a time dry amontillado styles of Jerez only more up-front and significantly less refined with underlying notes of dried fruits.

Palate:

Brimming with diverse flavours and sensations, this is a very fine, balanced and rounded offering with structure, saline notes and complexity. Depending on your taste, it’s either everything or nothing. You choose – it’s simply Adorado.