2017 Muchada - Léclapart 'Lumiere' Palomino

Lumière is from 60 year old Palomino vines from a plot size of just 1.2 hectares. Aged in large format aged French oak for 14 months. Lemon, pear, honeysuckle. A very aromatic, supple, elegant wine. Decant before serving (or enjoy over time as it opens up!)

Originally working as an architect, Alejandro Muchada met Grower Champagne producer David Léclapart while travelling in 2011 and the pair quickly realised they shared a passion for organic agriculture, biodynamic viticulture, and minimal intervention winemaking.

Alejandro hales from Cádiz, a historic wine region on the Atlantic coast on Andalusia, Spain while David is from Trépail, Champagne.

Together, they sought the best vineyards in Sanlúcar de Barrameda (Jerez, Spain), on the historic ‘Pago Miraflores’ plateau, where they have restored three hectares of old vines planted to Palomino and Muscat (Moscatel).

Different to the rest of Jerez (Sherry), their objective here is to create great white wines without flor or fortification.

The vines are old bush vines tended to by hand and horse. The soils are rough Albariza limestone at approximately 2 metres deep and ‘lustrillos’ (calcareous clay) at the surface.  The vines are farmed organically and with biodynamic practices too. The grapes are harvested by hand, and the wine is wild fermented, aged on yeast lees in aged oak, vinified without additions or adjustments, and then bottled unfiltered, unfined and with minimal sulphites. 

The resulting wines are intense and rich, but very balanced. A dry, razor’s edge of acidity balanced by mineralic, chalky texture and great persistence, flavour and length.

In 2020 Jancis Robinson wrote about Muchada-Léclapart being a ‘Star of tomorrow’ and thought that unfortified Palomino from Andalusia has the capacity of becoming one of the most profound white wines in the world.

Wine writer Dr. Jamie Goode wrote a fantastic article on Muchada-Léclapart here where he rated all of the wines 94-98 points.  

As we already work with David Léclapart (albeit in a tiny capacity as he produces just a few thousand bottles), I wrote to Alejandro expressing my interest in the wines. Nearly 3 years later we received our first allocation!