Wine of the week
Tío Pepe: dry but never boring. Bill Bolloten pays tribute to the classic Jerez fino
Tío Pepe Fino, González Byass/Bodegas Tío Pepe
DO Jerez-Xérès-Sherry
ABV: 15%
Variety: 100% Palomino
€7.70 from Decántalo (75cl)
This week I pay modest tribute to one of Spain’s most iconic and emblematic wines. It’s not an elusive, ‘insider wine’, being available in supermarkets far and wide. It’s a genuine classic, and the quality is always first class.
Señores y señoras, we are talking about Tío Pepe fino, a symbol of Jerez and Spanish wine culture. Its distinctive logo featuring a dapper Andalusian gentleman with wide-brimmed hat and guitar has appeared on billboards and in marketing since the 1930s, and it remains instantly recognisable today
Tío Pepe is produced by González Byass, a historic winery in Jerez de la Frontera. The story began in 1835, when Manuel María González Ángel started out as a wine trader.
To help him navigate the British market, Manuel partnered with his English agent Robert Blake Byass, and together they established the González Byass company, which would become one of Spain’s most important sherry producers.
The name Tío Pepe (Spanish for “Uncle Joe”) is a tribute to José Ángel de la Peña, Manuel’s uncle. He advised the founder in his early days as a winemaker, and encouraged him to specialise in biologically aged wines. The wine that bore his name became one of the earliest fino sherries to be bottled and branded, rather than sold in bulk, a revolutionary step at the time.
In the words of César Saldaña, director general of the Consejo Regulador of the DOs Jerez-Xérès-Sherry and Manzanilla-Sanlúcar de Barrameda, Tío Pepe is “an extraordinarily commercial fino, in the most positive sense of the term.” This is because of the enormous number of biologically aged botas maintained by González Byass that are distributed in different solerajes. This allows the style of this fino to remain consistent and unchanged.
There are other pointers to quality. For example, the grapes used for Tío Pepe label come from the Macharnudo and Carrascal pagos, two of the most renowned terroirs in Jerez.
Only the free-run juice and first-press musts are used for making Tío Pepe. And for under eight euros you get a wine that is aged for a minimum of four years under flor.
I like it chilled by itself, enjoying the fresh, bright aromas of green apple, olives and brine. It’s not the most complex fino, but it’s dry and rounded, with saline and yeasty flavours.
Tío Pepe also pairs brilliantly with jamón ibérico, whose nutty, fatty, umami flavours are complemented by the crisp and briny notes of a fino. Trust me on this: I live in Jabugo, Huelva, where our jamón has a Protected Designation of Origin, and I’ve enjoyed this combination time and again.
Tio Pepe paired with jamón de bellota 100% ibérico from Jamones Lazo
If you want to sample the maximum expression of Tío Pepe’s biological ageing, give the annual en rama release a try. It’s a saca taken directly from botas every spring when the flor is most active, and bottled without filtration or clarification.