Half-bottle of Bodegas Alonso Single Cask Amontillado (Medium Sweet) Average 30 Years

Bodegas Alonso is the brainchild of brothers Francisco and Fernando Asencio who, with a fortune from the construction industry behind them, were looking for a new challenge and found three small but prestigious houses in Sanlúcar de Barrameda, namely Pedro Romero, Gaspar Florido and Fernando Méndez.

The brothers hail from Seville, though their grandfather was a vigneron and hotelier from Ribera del Duero, and the boys already own a wine estate in Asturias in the north of Spain. Both brothers studied engineering and business in the United States but having made careers for themselves in that field, they jointly reached the conclusion that they were sick of the path they were on!

Change had to come and it was the discovery of wonderful wines from Pedro Romero that set them on a new road.

The entire stock of Pedro Romero and the others, all already deeply respected for the high quality of their solera sherries, were bought by the brothers, together with the 18th century former convent buildings of Pedro Romero to give them somewhere perfect for ageing the fine old wines they had acquired. In addition, the Asencios bought 13 hectares making up three prime vineyards in Jerez Superior, where the soils are the prized white albariza, so that they could create their own manzanilla wines.

Not content with this, they have scoured Sanlúcar for other stocks of fine manzanilla that they can bring on in their own cellars. The brothers are fanatical in their determination to craft the most traditional, authentic expression of the manzanilla style possible, as illustrated by the superb 'Velo Flor' Manzanilla Madura.