Equipo Navazos - Florpower Bota 84 NV (750ml)
Price: $44.99
| Producer | Equipo Navazos |
| Country | Spain |
| Region | Jerez |
| Varietal | Palomino |
| Sku | 67148 |
| Size | 750ml |
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Equipo Navazos Description
At EQUIPO NAVAZOS we are determined to extract the full potential of biological ageing under flor at natural (unfortified) alcohol content. It was following that path that the white Navazos-Niepoort was produced for the first time in 2008 (there are quite a few vintages out in the market by now). Then we started a number of experiments ageing in butt and vats, using both palomino fino and pedro ximénez sourced from different terroirs in the Sherry district and Montilla – and even other non-commercial projects in Spain’s northeast and northwest.
Along this line, in 2018 we bottled the fifth vintage of Florpower that has got to the market (MMXVI, i.e. 2016), as release number 84 of the LA BOTA series. La Bota de Florpower 84 MMXVI, an unfortified white wine, basically follows vintages 2010 and 2012 (releases 44, 53 and 57) in origin and winemaking practices, and particularly the 2014 vintage (La Bota de Florpower MMXIV 67 “Más acá”), which started a line followed by vintage 2015 (release 77) as well. This means an earlier bottling, with a shorter period of quiet ageing under flor in inox tank, after the same first period of intense biological ageing in traditional 600 liters sherry casks. We think that this wine shows a perfect balance of terroir and biological ageing at this point, in a fresher and less mature version of Florpower than the first two releases.
Made exclusively of Palomino Fino sourced from the blessed plot known as Pago Miraflores La Baja, it fermented old style, in the same casks where it later aged under flor for 8 months. By July 2017 it all went to a stainless steel vat where—always under the by now much milder influence of flor yeasts—it remained until bottling in June 2018.
Wine Advocate: 93 Points
The unfortified Palomino from Sanlúcar from the 2016 vintage was bottled as 2016 La Bota de Florpower 84 MMXVI, a wine matured under flor in bota and stainless steel and bottled bone dry at 12% alcohol. It comes from two plots in the Pago Miraflores Baja, and it fermented with indigenous yeasts in sherry butts. The wine matured in fifteen 600-liter sherry casks for eight months under flor and then was transferred to a stainless steel vat, where it matured for a further nine months and also developed a thin layer of flor yeasts. 2016 was a milder year, especially the summer, and the wine is fresh, sharp and precise. It's very much marked by the vineyard, as it's selected from the old vines from Miraflores, grapes that have unusual power and intensity, but at the same time, it keeps great balance and finesse. 3,000 bottles were filled in the spring of 2018.
It's hard to believe that Equipo Navazos will celebrate their 15th anniversary next year and already produce around 40,000 bottles of wine, mainly sherry, per year. They are responsible for putting sherry back in the spotlight. I tasted the numbered bottlings, the rare and more complex wines from 82 through to 93 and the regular bottlings and collaborations with other producers. You might notice some numbers are missing, because they also release small batches of spirits aged in sherry casks (like the extraordinary La Bota de Gin 81), but I haven't yet started tasting and rating spirits...
