Rene Langdahl. Wine journalist (Denmark)
“IT’S STILL NOT SHERRY, BUT…”
Published on Renelangdahl.com (July 2020)
Rene Langdahl is one of the most followed wine writers in Denmark and the Scandinavian world. On his blog he dedicated an entry to our project in July 2020.
He began his article poetically: « Can one transfer a total experience to bottle? Can one describe a landscape, a mood, best by meticulous and naturalistic artistic reproduction or is the hinted point-painted impressionist style perhaps better to give the viewer the feeling that the “painter” had when he / she stood in the landscape and the sun broke through the leaves in golden misty streaks, hovering flies and the rustle of leaves gave the soundscape and the scents were intoxicating? I doubt it, but Alejandro Muchada and David Léclapart are impressionists. They have transferred the insane glare from chalk-white soils under a cloudless but seagull-subdued sky and saline sea breeze to the bottle. Much of the albariza soil at Jerez and Sanlúcar de Barrameda is dead, ugly and barren, but in the duo’s plots, which are grown biodynamically, there is grass, herbs and flowers between the rows – and the plants, enchantment in the dazzling landscape, they have brought over in the bottle ».
In his article, he emphasizes the commitment to not fortification, nor to the use of the flower veil, showing the terroir without makeup. We shared the magnificent tasting notes from him.
We share her tasting notes:
Lumière 2017
Still a masterful mouthful. Last year I went crazy in detail – I could do that here too and add more cereal dust, lactofermented light vegetables, brie de meaux, kefir and hops, white currant juice, cement and lemon juice. Peeled, but wide, candy on concrete, a puddle in a chalk pit, depth and creamy mascarpone notes, free-bio-chamomile-honey-dryness. Still pure palomino.
Elixir 2017
40% moscatel and 60% palomino fermented in four-year-old bordeaux barriques and with battonage for ten months. Heavily perfumed rose scent, Provencal soap shop, but not overbearing and full of salted lemons and salted canned apricots, just without acid, rich and floral, whitewashed minerality and mildly raspy texture with more acid than the other two, spiced with gently judging sezchuan pepper on tongue and mouth-watering aftertaste with grape bitterness.
Univers 2017
Only steel tank vinified. Ultra-peeled and lime-dusty and as such impossible to make into liquid, but it IS like liquid. Apple juice, green olive broth, Maltese yeast and apricot juice, sunny and cool at the same time. Incredibly refreshing and completely clean and free of funk. Bone dry, almost a kind of anti-structure, texture like wine-grained sandpaper with acid (and this is not normal for palomino), magically viscous and aftertaste with lime, grapefruit backing and bigadej.