CH’NG Poh Tiong
Bodegas Osborne is located in El Puerto de Santa María.
The company is the second oldest company in Spain still in family hands after 248 years. In 1772, Englishman Thomas Osborne Mann founded his first winery in Cadiz in the deep south of the country. Osborne was from Devon and had journeyed to Spain because of the growing English demand for the wines of Jerez. Still family-owned and managed, Osborne is one of Spain’s most highly respected wine and spirits producer. The seventh generation is in charge today.
The Sherry region is sometimes referred to as a “Golden Triangle”.
Located to the north-east of Cadiz, this southernmost part of the Iberian Peninsula (where the famous Iberico ham also comes from) is surrounded by the Altantic coast and framed by two rivers, the Guadalquivir and Guadalete. Traigular in shape, the Sherry region encompasses three towns:
- Jerez de la Frontera
- El Puerto de Santa Maria (where Christopher Columbus fitted up his ship the Santa Maria
- Sanlucar de Barrameda.
The Osborne cellars have very high ceilings that allow hot air to rise but at the same time keeping the air below cool.
Amontillado begins life as a Fino, protected by a cap of flor yeast limiting its exposure to the air.
Two types of wind dominate the region.
The Poniente is a fresh, humid westerly wind while the Levante is the dry, hot easterly response. These two alternating winds provide very favourable conditions for growing grapes including palomino and pedro ximenez. The climate too. As a result of the influence of the Atlantic, winters are mild and dry, and summers are hot. Africa is just a 95-km stretch of water away from Cadiz to Tangier in Morocco.
Bodegas Osborne is located in El Puerto de Santa María.
The winery is one of the oldest. Some 250 years later, the family continues to produce exceptional Finos, Manzanillas, Amontillados, Olorosos and some of the oldest, greatest, rarest Pedro Ximenez sweet wines in the world.
The Osborne Family has a magnificent collection of very old soleras, barrels containing incredibly ancient Sherries laid down in barrels a long time ago. Some of them give only 745 bottles. For the entire world!
Family Heirloom Pedro Ximenez is drawn from a single-butt solera established in 1905.
VORS Amontillado is nutty, salty, chalky, dried Chinese prunes, crisp and riveting. A wonderful contrast to Pedro Ximenez, the dryness of Amontillado has a zest and tang which is very long.
