NV NV Bodegas San Francisco Javier Viña Corrales Pago Balbaína Fino Sherry

I previewed a preliminary blend for the 2025 bottling of the NV Fino Viña Corrales Pago Balbaína while I tasted the current vintages of Pingus in Ribera del Duero, and the wine blew me away. It has a deep golden color and a complex and nuanced nose, creamy ("mantecoso"), complex and nutty, with tons of esparto grass notes, showing old average age. It's definitely an aged and nuanced old Fino. There's no room here for lightness; it's complex and big, powerful and intense, pungent, long and persistent but in balance and with elegance and good freshness. This is nine or 10 years of average age. I later tasted the bottled wine in September 2025 and had the chance to compare it with the bottlings from 2020 and 2022. The creaminess from this bottling is amazing. Intense and with a bitter twist in the finish. This has some baby fat compared with the bottlings from 2022 and 2020. It's more pungent, and the colors are bright, which reference a vibrant wine that has barely changed with years in bottle. The wine from 2025 has a lot more influence from their own vineyard, which is certified organic and is the only one feeding the criaderas since they started. So, the wine is increasingly better each year. The climate of the year when the wine is taken out is also reflected in the wine, and 2025 was a rainier year with milder temperatures during the season; the summer was another story... The wines in bottle are evolving at a very slow pace. They did 8,420 bottles that were filled in May 2025.

The NV Fino Viña Corrales Pago Balbaína was bottled in 2021, clearly shown on the label and on the cork. It has a round, lush and buttery texture, a full-bodied palate and very pungent flavors. What surprised me from this bottling is the freshness and elegance that makes the wine feel lighter and easier to drink. This feels one step above the first bottling I tasted last year. It has incredible aromatics that are super complex, with notes of diesel, potpourri, wet chalk, esparto grass and yeasts. This is simply superb and even difficult because it's sooooo easy to drink. In 2020, they did two bottlings, or sacas, in the spring and autumn, which is quite unusual because the idea is to do only one bottling per year. In 2021, they bottled a little bit later, trying to soften the character of the "beticus" yeasts. They filled some 7,500 bottles in May 2021. This was bottled completely "en rama," unfiltered and unfined. Bodegas San Francisco Javier is the joint venture in Jerez from Peter "Pingus" Sisseck and Carlos "Hacienda Monasterio" del Río. I tasted the 2021 bottling of their Fino, which was even better, fresher and more elegant than the already surprising 2020. I published this note as part of the portfolio of his different wines, and I include it here for context and completeness.

Peter Sisseck of Pingus's single-vineyard venture into Jerez, from a plot in Balbainas. This is the spring 2022 bottling. Packaged in a dark burgundy-shaped bottle. Pale apricot colour – quite a contrast to most water-white finos! Really, seriously pungent with notes of salted almonds and rising bread dough. Fascinating with something a bit singed about it – in a good way! Long, bone dry with real grip. Great depth and interest to this wine – and it's very much a wine. I wouldn't have thought there is a desperate hurry to drink it. I'd be fascinated to see how it evolves in bottle but, since it is so very new, my suggested drink dates are pure conjecture. (JR)