With this set of three bottles, we will discover the three red wines made in amphora to understand how clay shapes the profile of wine during aging. It's an interesting material as, like oak, clay is porous, so it does allow for some oxygen giving the wine a deep and rich texture, but like stainless steel, it’s a neutral material that won’t impart any additional flavors.
 
This set includes the following wines:
 
Caíño Tinto, Anfora Vermella, Nanclares y Prieto, Galicia 2019
If you are a Cab.Franc lover, then you're going to fall in love with Caíños from Rías Baixas, and, Nanclares y Prieto's one is a superb example of all the finesse this variety can showcase. 100% Caiño From vines in the Perdecanai parcel in the Barro area. The vines are pergola trained and range in age from 15-90 years. Planted on rich sandy-loam soils over granitic bedrock. The grapes were harvested by hand, sorted, and crushed by foot, then macerated on their skins and stems and fermented for 21 days before pressing to a 300L clay amphora from Tinajero Padilla. There, the wine rested on its lees for 11 months, with batonnage for the first month. Bottled without fining or filtering and rested in bottle for 21 months before release. 
 
Tintilla de Rota, Mahara,Cádiz, 2016
Welcome to San Fernando, Cádiz. A land where the winemaking tradition underlies the unsurpassed dimension of Sherry. Winemakers like Miguel and Jose (Bodega Vinifícate, also known as the Mahara). Mahara means "crazy, nuts" in slang. And it kind of translates the "fresh air" of change that they have brought to the area. It is very likely that many of you have not even heard of the Tintilla de Rota, a variety that has always grown here. This 2016 was left to macerate for a long time with the skins in order to be able to age it in amphora (500l and 1000l) for 9 months. Mahara is a wine where the brothers want to extract something more from the stalk, maintaining freshness, gaining delicate green nuances, and increasing its salinity. The wine is deadly good! Filled with aromas of prunes, mulberries & pickled blackberries coated with an interesting salinity.
 
Cencibel, Las Tinadas, Bodegas Verum 2016
Elías uses his grandfather’s old clay tinajas to make his wines in Spain's frying pan: La Mancha. Labeled under its local name, Cencibel, this wine is made from 100% Tempranillo sourced from the Las Tinadas vineyard parcel planted in 1956, this masterpiece represents modern, elegant, and truly unique fine winemaking. It is fermented and then aged in a clay amphora for 12 months, followed by more than four years of maturation in the bottle. The result is stunning: incredible complexity of distinctive varietal aromas (sour cherries, forest fruits), that since no oak barrels are used, display an exquisite purity of fruit.