Forget Rosé – This Is the Summer of Palomino

As temperatures rise, few white wines are as refreshing as Palomino, says drinks expert Alice Lascelles. 

Forget rosé – the thing I’ll be drinking this summer is well-chilled Palomino, which, in its very best forms, is as vibrant, sapid and thirst-quenching as white wine gets.

Better-known as the sherry grape, Palomino is a sun worshipper; it thrives in scorching environments like Jerez in Andalucia. Yet even in drought-like conditions, its vines yield big, juicy berries, resulting in table wines that are fresh, saline, and relatively low in acid and alcohol. Great heatwave drinking, in other words.

And Palomino is increasingly in the spotlight thanks to a clutch of top winemakers in Spain, South Africa, and California who are using low-yielding, old-vine plantings to make classy unfortified wines. Here are three to know.

See also: The Surprising Return of High-Proof Spirits

Holism Palomino 2022, Piekenierskloof, South Africa

Way up in the Piekenierskloof, two hours north of Cape Town, beyond the reach of Google maps or cell phones, lies Swartberg Wingerde, the rugged passion project of star winemaker Rudiger Gretschel (Chocolate Block, Boekenhootskloof, Cap Krone, Reyneke). Here, among the baboons and fynbos, Gretschel has been resurrecting old vineyards, the best of which he bottles as Holism, a single-variety wine.

“I grew up in the Namibian desert,” he says, “so the wildness of Piekeneerskloof just speaks to me. It has always been my dream to own a vineyard here – I like this idea of hardy things thriving in the heat.”

The oldest Palomino vines here date from 1966; they’ve not been irrigated a day in their life. On the day I visit the deep sand in the vineyards is almost too hot to touch. But cool Atlantic breezes prevent the fruit from getting over-ripe. “They give the wines lift and lightness,” says Gretschel, “and make it possible to make something quite delicate.”

Holism Palomino 2022 has an almost sake-like fineness and freshness – combining thirst-quenching notes of nashi pear, green grape and white flowers with a very user-friendly abv of 11 percent. 

“What else can you stick in the ground, not water for 60 years and get fruit from like this?” says Gretschel. “It’s a miracle.”

See also: Interesting Wines To Order At Dinner, According To Sommeliers

Suertes del Marqués Vidonia 2023, Tenerife, Spain

Palomino is the most widely-planted grape variety in the Canary Islands, where it goes by the name Listán Blanco. And many of the best examples in the volcanic archipelago are to be found on Tenerife. Most celebrated are the wines by Suertes del Marques, a family-owned domaine on the north of the island, whose palm-bordered vineyards run from the foothills of the Mount Teide down towards the sea. Like most of the vines on Tenerife they’re ungrafted, because the island was never properly hit by phylloxera, the pest that decimated European vineyards in the 19^th century. And to that extent, they have particular appeal to oenological purists. 

The cloudy, humid climate and volcanic soils on the north coast give the the wines a bit more mineral tension – even a subtle of hint of smoke – than you’d find in sunnier climes. But they also boast plenty of charming fruit: apple, pear, white almond, sometimes a hint of more hedonistic pineapple. “I like precision, elegance,” says boss and winemaker Jonatana García Lima.

Suertes’s signature cuvée, Vidonia, adds a bit more textural oak to the mix – but with a lighter touch since 2018. At the winery’s 20^th celebrations back in the spring I tasted 14 vintages of Vidonia and 2018, 2021, and 2023 were all standouts for me – striking the perfect balance between being charming and very moreish now, but also leaving enough in the tank to age impressively.

See also: Do You Need an AI Wine Cellar?

Scythian Wine Co, The Scythians White 2023, California, US

Where sommelier and winemaker Rajat Parr goes, California’s new-wave wine scene often follows. And his latest project, Scythian Wine Co, has its sights trained firmly on Palomino.

The venture, co-founded with The Scholium Project’s Abe Schoener, focuses on old ‘historically significant’ vineyards in Cucamonga, just east of Los Angeles and Temecula, just north of San Diego, all of which are are over 100 years old. Red grapes include Zinfandel, Mission and Grenache but Palomino is the only white.

“For me it comes back to the Lopez Vineyard, a very special place planted in 1912, dry farmed and never sprayed, where the vines have had over a century to find their own equilibrium with that ground,” says Parr. “Palomino isn’t a grape people expect much from outside of Jerez, but from a site like this it shows a saline quality and a precision that I find hard to get from almost anything else — there’s a tension to the fruit, an almost electric salinity, that speaks directly to the age of the vines and the honesty of how they’re farmed. Working with it feels less like winemaking and more like listening; the grape doesn’t ask for much, it just asks you to get out of the way.”

A week on the skins gives this Palomino grip and intensity – citrus meets yeasty savouriness and energising grapefruit zest.

If you’re in the area it can also be bought and sampled at Parr’s tasting rooms in Cambria, CA.