Hidalgo-La Gitana

Hidalgo-La Gitana was founded in Sanlúcar de Barrameda in 1792 by Don Pantaleón José Hidalgo, who took over the management of a small winery belonging to his father-in-law, Roque Bejarano. The company remains under the control of the founding family, whose eighth generation currently manages the business.

The historic cellars stand in Sanlúcar’s Barrio Bajo, close to the Guadalquivir estuary. The producer currently cultivates more than 120 hectares of Palomino in the pagos of Balbaína and Miraflores; its principal vineyard properties include El Cuadrado and Pastrana.

Manzanilla La Gitana is the flagship wine and one of the most widely distributed Manzanillas, undergoing biological ageing in Sanlúcar and reaching an average age of approximately five years. La Gitana En Rama is released in limited selections intended to preserve a closer expression of the wine as tasted from the cask.

The producer dates the origins of the Pastrana project to 1985, when Javier Hidalgo and Portuguese wine producer Cristiano van Zeller set out to create a Manzanilla based entirely on a single vineyard. Finca Pastrana covers approximately fourteen hectares in the Miraflores pago. Manzanilla Pasada Pastrana was first commercially released in 1997 and undergoes more than twelve years of biological ageing before bottling. Pastrana was one of the pioneering modern expressions of vineyard-designated Manzanilla; earlier historical precedents, however, cannot be excluded.

The current VORS range comprises Napoleón Amontillado VORS, Faraón Oloroso VORS, Wellington Palo Cortado VORS and Triana Pedro Ximénez VORS, each with a certified minimum average age of thirty years. The company also markets Wellington VOS 20, a separate Palo Cortado with a certified minimum average age of twenty years. The Napoleón and Wellington names are traditionally linked by the producer to wines supplied to French and British interests during the Peninsular War — an association that forms part of the family and commercial tradition of the house.