Palo cortado
Palo cortado (German: broken stick ) is a traditional style of sherry that produces excellent and rare sherries. Palo cortado usually arises by chance during sherry production, when a fino unintentionally develops in the direction of oloroso during aging . The flor yeast is precipitated and the wine is exposed to stronger oxidation . The result is a sherry that tastes like an intermediate between Amontillado and Oloroso. Its complex aroma is often reminiscent of nuts or almonds. Palo cortado is mostly made dry with an alcohol content between 18 and 22% vol.
expansion
The palo cortado is made from grapes and musts that have been selected for a fino. (= Palo). In the sherry region these are mainly first musts from the Palomino Fino , in the DO Montilla-Moriles those from the Pedro Ximenez . The Palomino musts are almost always fortified to 15-16 percent alcohol by volume with alcohol, those from the Pedro Ximenez reach this level of alcohol in good years without alcohol. After fermentation in fermentation barrels , fermentation tanks or in clay jugs (Tinajas), the young wines are transferred to 600 liter sherry barrels and mature in the Solera-Criadera process like other sherries, manzanillas or wines from Montilla-Moriles. A reductive expansion is planned under the pile yeast layer that will form soon after moving , which largely prevents contact with oxygen. For reasons that are not exactly known, some barrels of a vintage sometimes develop differently than the others. Then the winemaker can tick off the palo , it has become a cortado , a ticked off, or a crossed out palo .
If the winemaker recognizes the different development of the wine in good time, it is fortified again to 17-19 percent by volume, whereby the still existing flor yeast dies and the further development of the wine takes place oxidatively.
More rarely, palo cortados are made from wines that should actually mature into olorosos . In this case, too, it is allegedly not known exactly why some barrels in a solera behave differently than the others. Originally, Palo cortadados actually seem to have been wines that were created spontaneously and not developed in a planned manner. The great demand for this type of sherry and the correspondingly large supply suggest, however, that Palo cortados, at least in the large bodegas, are deliberately made from somewhat full-bodied Fino base wines that are reductively expanded for a few years and then ripen oxidatively after being sprinkled again.
The blending of Amontillados with oloroso is allowed, but such wines may not be marketed as Palo cortado.
Sensory characteristics
In terms of taste and appearance, a palo cortado lies between amontillado and oloroso. With Amontillado he shares above all the freshness and complex nut aromas, with Oloroso the richness of the body. Typical palo cortados are usually dry wines, semi-sweet and sweet variants are less common on the market.
Web links
- Summary at derstandard.at
- Sherry overview (PDF file; 185 kB)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Horst Dippel : The wine dictionary. 4th edition, Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2000, p. 346 f.
- ↑ Jancis Robinson: The Oxford Wine Lexicon. Hallwag Verlag, Munich 2003, p. 537.