Bodegas Yuste "Aurora" Amontillado Sherry 500ml
We have 3 in stock (Inventory is live and accurate)
The Land
Sanlúcar de Barrameda is known for Manzanilla, the pale, salty sherry that can only be aged in this town, but its cellars also hold some of the most compelling Amontillado in the sherry triangle. Sanlúcar sits where the Guadalquivir meets the Atlantic, and the damp westerly breeze off the estuary keeps cellar temperatures mild and humidity high, so the flor yeast grows thicker here than in Jerez or El Puerto. The vineyards around town are planted to Palomino on chalky albariza, which holds winter rain through the long, dry summer. Yuste ages its wines in three cellars: Miraflores, about 800 meters from the estuary, Santa Ana in the lower town, and Los Ángeles, a 19th-century military building in the Barrio Alto near Santiago Castle, where this Amontillado rests.
The Wine
Despite the "dessert" reputation sherry carries in the US, this is a bone-dry wine. Bodegas Yuste Aurora Amontillado starts life as Manzanilla Pasada, the same old-flor style as the bodega's La Kika, and then continues aging oxidatively once the flor fades. That two-stage life is what defines Amontillado from Sanlúcar: the briny, yeasty backbone of Manzanilla with the nutty depth of oxidative aging layered on top. The solera was established in 1991 and serves as the base for Yuste's older Conde de Aldama Amontillado. Bottled around 19 percent alcohol, it shows amber color, seaweed and sea spray, hazelnut, walnut husk, dried fig and orange peel, then a racy, salty palate of roasted pecan and salted caramel that finishes long, savory and faintly smoky.
The People
Francisco "Paco" Yuste built his career as a beverage distributor in Andalucía before turning to sherry. In 1991 he bought and restored Bodega Santa Ana in Sanlúcar's Barrio Bajo, which came with a Manzanilla solera more than a century old, and for years the house worked as an almacenista, aging wine without bottling under its own name. Yuste later acquired the Conde de Aldama soleras, dating to the 18th century, whose barrels were famously sealed with plaster to keep pre-phylloxera wine from mixing with later fills. In 2016 he also bought the historic Argüeso cellar. The Aurora line honors Aurora Ambrosse Lacave, a 19th-century Sanlúcar widow; the label shows her as a bride on the beach at the 1890 Feria de la Manzanilla.
Food Pairing
Serve it cool, around 55 degrees, in a white wine glass. A bowl of Marcona almonds and thin slices of jamón ibérico is the classic Andalusian match, salt and fat meeting a wine that is built from both. Mushroom and onion consommé, or a cup of French onion soup under its Gruyère crust, plays to the umami. Artichokes braised with garlic and lemon, notoriously hard on table wines, sit comfortably next to Amontillado. For dinner, try pan-roasted chicken thighs with a sherry and cream pan sauce. Keep the 500ml bottle in the fridge after opening and it will hold for weeks of evening pours.
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Palomino Fino is the grape of Sherry, grown on the white albariza chalk around Jerez, Sanlúcar de Barrameda and El Puerto de Santa María. On its own it is neutral and low in acidity, which is exactly what makes it ideal for the solera: under a layer of flor yeast it becomes Fino and Manzanilla, tangy, saline and nutty; aged oxidatively it becomes Amontillado and Oloroso, deeper and richer with walnut, toffee and spice. A growing number of producers now bottle unfortified, still Palomino from single albariza vineyards, revealing a chalky, mineral white wine. It is also planted in the Canary Islands, where it is called Listán Blanco.
