It’s been fifteen years since Eduardo Ojeda and Jesús Barquín burst onto the scene with their limited edition, “mind-blowing” [Jamie Goode] La Bota series. Sourced from the region’s rarest, most significant (and hitherto neglected) solera systems, Equipo Navazos swiftly became the cult producer for quality Sherry lovers, knowledgeable sommeliers and indie retailers worldwide.

Barquín is one of Spain’s leading experts and writers on Sherry, while Ojeda, one of Jerez’s leading tasters and blenders, is the technical director for the Estévez group, owners of Valdespino and La Guita Manzanilla. What these two do not know about Sherry is probably not worth knowing. The origins of the project date to late 2005, Ojeda and Barquín were tasting through some 400 casks of Manzanilla at the bodega of Sánchez Ayala in Sanlucar. As Andrew Jefford (The Coming of Jesús, Decanter) recounts in his story, one particular wine sparked the project we love so much today. 

“After they had cantered through the Manzanillas, they started tasting other things in the cellar and discovered a ‘shrinking’ Amontillado solera which had been untouched and unrefreshed for 20 years. “The casks were beautiful,” Barquín remembers. “But since there was no market for Amontillado, the owner had instructed that instead of refreshing the angel’s share, the solera should be topped up from existing stocks, so the original 74 casks were now 69 or 65, I can’t remember.”  Forty years of crisis had left Jerez and Sanlúcar littered with treasures of this sort. That was when the idea dawned on Barquín: why not buy a cask? He and Ojeda could then sell the bottles to their friends.” 

Guided by their vast knowledge and unparalleled contacts, Navazos has assembled arguably the finest offering of Sherries in the market, while also promoting the great historical and cultural traditions that lie behind Sherry and the Jerez region

Since that first cask of Amontillado—named simply Bota de Amontillado No.1 after the short story by Edgar Allan Poe, ‘The Cask of Amontillado’—each successive, limited-edition bottling has been numbered accordingly and bottled En Rama: straight from the cask. The wines are selected for sheer quality as well as their distinct personalities. Initially, these bottlings were intended only for a select group of friends and professionals, but the response to the wines was so enthusiastic that it became evident that something important could, and should, come of this idea—namely, Equipo Navazos could remind the world just how great Sherry could be.

Guided by their vast knowledge and unparalleled contacts, Navazos has gone on to assemble arguably the finest offering of Sherries in the market, while also promoting the great historical and cultural traditions that lie behind Sherry and the Jerez region. These are all one-off bottlings, and once the bottles for each La Bota release are spoken for, there are no more. Our allocations remain very small and most often sell out before general release.

Thankfully, the Navazos story does not end with the hard-to-source La Bota wines. In consultation with a small core of importers (including Bibendum Wine Co.) Navazos also bottles a trio of more accessible yet still unfiltered En Rama sherries under the Equipo Navazos label. ‘I Think’ is a wonderfully potent and briny Manzanilla from the La Guita stable; the Fino ‘En Rama’ is drawn from a gold-standard solera and includes fruit from the ‘Montrachet’ of Jerez—Macharnudo Alto; and the Gran Solera is a stunning Jerezano style P.X. aged for over 25 years. These are shipped freshly bottled, in more significant quantities and positioned at more accessible pricing. Also remarkable is Navazos’ white wine project, inspired by a period in Andalucían wine history before fortification was the norm.

Finally, for some time now Navazos has turned its attention to sourcing some extraordinary examples of Spanish spirits in collaboration with New York spirits guru Nicolas Palazzi. The unique range of La Bota Whiskey, Rum, Brandy and Gin stem at least in part from this fertile collaboration. Most are single-cask and have spent much of their lives aging in large Sherry bota in Jerez de la Frontera.