2019 Lumiere

100% Palomino. From a single plot of 60-year-old vines in La Platera in Pago Miraflores. West-facing and planted on tosca cerrada albariza soils. Spontaneous alcoholic fermentation and aged in used French oak barrels for 11 months. Deep straw. Very tangy and vibrant and more Jerez than French! Pretty wine. Almost delicate! Transparent. (JR)

I tasted again the 2019 Lumière, which showed a little different from the other vintages. It comes from the first year of drought and is yeastier, perhaps a little more reductive, smoky/toast. Palomino develops greatly in bottle, and even though the wines might show little expression or appear neutral in their youth, they develop complexity and nuance with time in bottle, yeasty, with notes of diesel and tar, elegant and subtle, profound. This is better than what I found when I tasted it next to the 2018 back in 2022. It's not going to fade anytime soon...

100% Palomino. 60-year-old vines from the older part – Viña Platera Vieja –​​​​​​​ of the same plot in Sanlucar as the Univers bottling, and oaked. Fermented and vinified in used Bordeaux barrels for 9 – 10 months. Spontaneous fermentation. Work on lees. Without filtering or cold stabilising. Light bentonite fining. Much less aromatic than my sample of Univers (both of them in very small bottles and the Lumière one was only about two-thirds full which may explain this disparity). Denser on the palate and not quite as lively, though the finish is more concentrated with lots of acidity and a marked saline quality. This is like the elixir of the Univers 2019. But slightly less fun – from this sample bottle anyway. (JR)