Fino Pasado (La Inglesa)

The highly attractive stage in between a Fino and an Amontillado

With this Fino Pasado from Bodegas La Inglesa we’re back in Montilla-Moriles. It is the oldest Fino in their portfolio, which also includes a Fino En Rama and Solera Fina. It is a biologically aged wine (under a velo de flor) but due to its high age the flor weakens and oxidative ageing begins to develop gradually. During the warm season patches of flor may start to separate, exposing the wine to oxygen for brief periods of time. It is the borderline category between Fino and Amontillado.

Like all of their Finos, this comes from the Lagar de las Feas in the city center of Moriles. The older, oxidatively aged wines are kept in the La Inglesa palace itself. The Pedro Ximénez grapes come from their vineyards in the Moriles Alto zone. This wine starts from second-year tinaja wines.

Fino Pasado

It’s not often that you see Fino Pasado on a label. It’s a fairly new indication that only exists in the D.O. Montilla-Moriles, where the wine needs to be 10 years or older to use this name. In the D.O. Jerez-Xeres-Sherry they have a counterpart (since 2022) named Fino Viejo which needs to be 7 years or older. There’s also the category Manzanilla Pasada which exists since a very long time.

This Fino Pasado from Bodegas La Inglesa is around 14-16 years old.

Fino Pasado - La Inglesa - Montilla-Moriles

Fino Pasado (15%, La Inglesa, Saca Primavera 2024)

Nose: yeasty dough and bread crust, with some intense hints of haybales and dried grass in the sun. Some sweet almond sits in the background, along with oak polish and subtle solventy hints of nail polish remover. I quite like that. Underneath there’s also a faint farmy hint, as well as rounder notes of ripe pear.

Mouth: even rounder than expected, with the ripe white fruits at its core. High sapidity as well, but also very dry, with vegetal (leafy) hints that coats the palate. The skins of chestnuts or walnuts comes out, along with mineral hints of wet stone. Almond too. Then a mild herbal bitterness and some green olives in brine appear in the end.

Availability: quite expensive (around € 45-50 for a 50 cl bottle). Check Bodeboca, Coalla Gourmet or Vila Viniteca for instance. Hard to find outside of Spain.

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Summary: A very good Fino, but only marginally better than the regular Fino En Rama which is less than half the price. I prefer these wines to be a little further towards Amontillado, and here the PX roundness takes away some of its intensity, in my opinion. Nice but I can think of better examples in this price range.

4

Very good

Tags: 15%, Fino, Fino Amontillado, Fino Pasado

About the Author

Ruben is a Certified Sherry Educator who fell in love with sherry some 25 years ago, but switched to a higher gear in 2013 and started writing about it. Lived in Madrid for a couple of years, now back in Belgium. I also run a whisky blog over at www.whiskynotes.be