SPRING | 2023

FEATURED PRODUCER:

Juan piñero

I visited Juan Piñero’s winery before he passed away in 2019. Ramiro Ibañez had been consulting, replenishing the scales or ‘clases’ de manzanilla for several years, and recommended I taste through every scale. I hadn’t tasted the wines since they were last on the market in the United States probably sometime around 2015 or 2016. The wines were incredible. They were classic, Barrio Bajo manzanilla. The winery is situated almost in the border of Barrio Bajo and Barrio Alto in Sanlúcar. The base wine (most) at this point was being sourced from very good vineyards. Here’s a bit more history written by one of the industry’s best:

From Sherry Notes website (one of the best sources for sherry in the world) -

The history of Bodegas Juan Piñero started in 1992 with the purchase of a 3000 m² bodega in the Calle Trasbolsa in Sanlúcar, built in the 1920s and previously owned by Bodegas Argüeso. Juan Piñero – a businessman who made his fortune in construction and real estate – rescued and refurbished the building and started his own brand. Instead of buying aged wines from other bodegas like most start-up bodegas, he started from zero by acquiring top quality musts which he put into 1800 relatively new seasoned casks.

Piñero teamed up with La Gitana to get settled and develop a business as an almacenista, but this partnership stopped some time ago. In 2000 Piñero bought the existing solera Maruja from Pedro Domecq, who in turn acquired it from Terry. In 2007 he also acquired a bodega in the centre of Jerez de la Frontera, alongside the wines of Ángel Zamorano, an old almacenista. He started selling his Fino as the Fino Camborio, a brand from the lost bodegas Fernando A de Terry.

Maruja has been a rather famous brand of Manzanilla, but its history saw many ups and downs. The lesser periods caused to wine to age for many years without refreshments (almost turning into Amontillado), but later it was expanded and rejuvenated (with wines from Barbadillo among others) in times of success. An atypical evolution which supposedly adds to the complexity of the current-day wine.

In 2013 consultant winemaker Ramiro Ibáñez started working for Juan Piñero and the company released the first wines under its own name. For some of its base wines Piñero is working with Callejuela in the Pago del Hornillo, a district in the Jerez Superior area.

In 2021 Juan Piñero fell victim to the Corona virus, just over 70 years of age. The bodega is taken over by his children.