Founded by oenology professor Luis Pérez, the former technical director of Domecq, Bodegas Luis Pérez was launched in 2002 in Jerez with a view to return to the vineyard and show the world that great red wines could be made in Cádiz.
Alongside his children, Luis Pérez planted Syrah, Merlot and Petit Verdot, the fashionable grape varieties of the time, on the gypsum marl soils of the vineyard surrounding the beautiful Vistahermosa winery (pago Corchuelo), on the outskirts of the Andalusian city.
Soon after that, son Willy Pérez —who is now in charge of winemaking and is the visible face of the house— moved to Australia to learn about Shiraz with his friend and university classmate, Ramiro Ibáñez. Willy’s idea was to put in practice at the Vistahermosa estate everything he had learnt in McLaren Vale —an area with similar distance to the sea, temperature and rainfall to Jerez.
A book written in 1834 helped Willy, fifth generation of a family with ties to Sherry, to reconcile with the wines of his birthplace. In this book, James Busby —widely regarded as the father of the Australian wine— writes about his encounter with Pedro Domecq. From El Majuelo estate in Macharnudo, Domecq explains to him everything about the vineyard: soil types, pruning techniques, fermentations, the number of times he had been forced to mortgage El Majuelo to purchase more land… Willy, who had grown with the image of sherry being a distilled liquor rather than a style of wine, decided that if Pedro Domecq was right, he wanted to recover that Jerez. Thus was born La Barajuela, his set of unfortified vintage Sherry wines that favour the vineyard against the ageing.
The vineyards in El Corregidor, the historic estate once owned by Sandeman in pago Carrascal, supply the organic Palomino grapes to make four wines under the brand La Barajuela. Restored after years of neglect following the breakdown of Rumasa, its previous owner, the estate is divided into plots which are vinified separately. It’s an expensive process which requires a large workforce —50 days of harvest, up to 14 passes and 70 people in the 2017 vintage— but results in a wine collection that aims to recover the greatness of Sherry in the 19th century, when it was one of the most recognized wines in the world.
“If a vine has five or six bunches, they are picked on five stages. First is bunch thinning: those grapes are destined to make brandy and to adjust acidity naturally on certain stages in late harvests; grapes on the second passed go to the white (El Muelle de Olaso, €12); the third is for Fino La Barajuela (€31.95), the fourth set of grapes is for our Oloroso (€49.50) and the fifth is for our Raya (€ 34.95), made with very ripe grapes, explains Willy.
Once the grape bunches have been dehydrated in the sun (asoleo),they are stomped and pressed in the open lagares of El Corregidor before fermenting the must in butts that are filled according to the vintage’s biological intensity, making sure that the flor notes never overpower the terroir. These butts are stored in Vistahermosa, but plans are underway to build an underground cellar to complete the entire process —grape-stomping, fermentation and ageing— of their sherry wines in El Corregidor.
This future winery will also house the grapes picked at La Escribana and San Cayetano, two vineyards with a derelict cortijo that the Pérez family has recently purchased on Valcargado, in Macharnudo, the legendary vineyard with pure white albariza soils that the Arabs named (Machar means house and Nudo means naked) like that because vines were the only crop that would grow there. He also plans to launch a truly special wine from the 2016 vintage, heavily influenced by the hot and dry levant winds. Willy describes this wine from El Caribe vineyard as a “white with oxidative ageing” as it combines the usual cocoa, nutty notes of an oloroso (his initial idea was to make this style) with excellent salinity. “This wine is such a fluke! I’ll never be able to make it again!” he says.
As well as doing massal selection in their best vineyards, concerns about climate change have encouraged them to create their own hybrid varieties mixing Tintilla with Uva Rey, Tintilla with Palomino and Palomino with Palomino, looking for new seeds. “I’m in no hurry; I have my entire life to do that work but we must leave an inheritance, just as the elders did before us,” explains Willy, who rejects the idea that he is spearheading changes in Jerez.
“Everything has been done in Jerez before: sparkling wines, reds, brandies, sweet wines, dry, olorosos, with or without flor, with botrytis, late harvests… There isn’t a new generation bringing change. At the end of the 19th century, that movement was led by Count Aldama, the Marquis of Casa Domecq and Gumersindo Fernández de la Rosa. They realized that wines in Jerez were being made in the bodega and called for a return to the albariza soil”, explains Willy, who has always argued that biological ageing must only be a technique to refine wines rather than the aim of the wine itself. Hence his by now famous sentence 'Less veil, more soil'.
His interest to learn more about the history of the wines and soils of Jerez is shared with
Ramiro Ibáñez, with whom he is writing Los Sobrinos de Haurie. They are also partners at De La Riva, a joint project to recover old styles of sherry from selected vineyards sharing a historic coherence.
Four wines have been released so far: De La Riva White, sourced from grapes purchased from the vineyard El Notario, in Macharnudo Alto, and kept in the sun for a few hours to get the structured style of wines that was a trademark of this producer; De La Riva Fino, from Balbaína Alta, with around 10 years of ageing in criaderas and soleras and a single annual saca; De La Riva Oloroso Viejísimo, from Balbaína Baja, described by Willy as a “knife” despite having aged in a cellar in Jerez, where wines are meant to gain volume, and De La Riva Moscatel, “a unique sweet wine in the Sherry Triangle”. They now have a solera of very old oloroso which is being refreshed with wine from the same plot as they gradually buy more soleras to increase their lifespan. “We enjoy working together on this; it’s great fun”, says Willy.
Although he is devoted to recovering the history of Sherry, Willy Pérez does not neglect the single-vineyard wines of the early days —Garum, a blend of Merlot (70%) and equal parts of Syrah and Petit Verdot (€9.95) and Samaruco, which blends Syrah and Petit Verdot (€15.75), pretty much sustain the project, alongside Luis Pérez Petit Verdot (€45). Tintilla de Rota, a local grape variety that is valued for its high acidity, is the base for three wines: the fresh and spicy El Triángulo (€9.95), Tintilla (€17.50) and the directly pressed rosé Marismilla (€8.25).
Wine lovers visiting Bodegas Luis Pérez may tour the cellar as well as the open-air museum with all the grape varieties planted in their estate. Depending on the time of the year, visitors will enjoy first-hand vineyard tasks like pruning, desuckering, asoleo and even grape tasting. Wine enthusiasts looking for a place to tie the knot might be tempted once they see the gardens and the airy glass hall with spectacular views of the surrounding vineyard.
