Cellar Door Wines & Spirits

Ramiro Ibañez, UBE Miraflores 2024

$34.99
 
$34.99
 

Producer: Bodegas Ramiro Ibanez
Region: Andalucia, Spain
Varietals:  Palomino
Viticulture: Practicing Organic
Category: White
Size: 750ml

To revive tradition and fully express the unique terroir of Jerez are the goals of Ramiro Ibáñez, the talented mind behind Cota 45 and one-half of the team behind M. Ant. De La Riva. This visionary, a native of Sanlúcar de Barrameda, is one of the most knowledgeable winemakers in Jerez, the storied home of Manzanilla in southern Spain. Ramiro graduated with a degree in enology and spent three years working around the world before receiving a dream job offer to return home in 2009. Since then, Ramiro has been consulting for different bodegas, and in 2012 he was able to start his own project, initially called Cota 45. The name was a reference to 45 meters above sea level, the point where he believes the best albariza soils can be found.  Starting in the 2023 vintage, the Cota 45 wines are being bottled under Ramiro's own name, leaving behind the old label.  

Ramiro wanted to make unfortified table wine from old Palomino vines, just like the Jerezanos of the 19th Century favored. Many progressive thinkers in Jerez believe that the neutral Palomino grape can be a great vessel for translating the intricacies of albariza soil, so Ramiro takes these wines one step further and bottles them by individual pagos, or vineyards. Ramiro focuses on soils of three Sanlúcar pagos: Carrascal, Miraflores, and Maina. He ferments these wines in used manzanilla barrels (some are 150 years old) without temperature control, which he believes helps to minimize the fruitiness of the wines.

UBE Miraflores is from five different plots in Miraflores Alta and Miraflores Baja, one of the most celebrated pagos in Sanlúcar, with 80 to 90 years old Palomino vines planted at 50 to 60 meters above sea level facing west on three different type of Albariza soils: Lentejuelas, Lustrillo and Tosca Cerrada. Bottled on the early side (usually less than a year after harvest), this cuvee is meant to be ready to drink upon release but please don't hesitate to stash a few bottles away.