The Champagne Importer, the Albariza Maverick & the Refused Award
A scholar, journalist and former Champagne importer from Ronda who moved to Sanlúcar de Barrameda in 2012 to prove that Palomino on albariza could be more than sherry — Fernando Angulo makes zero-addition wines that are gently saline, luminous and fine, bottled by hand with crown caps in a garage cellar, and named after the individual plots he fights to preserve.
Origin — From Ronda to the Sherry Triangle, via Champagne
Fernando Angulo was born in Ronda, the mountaintown in the Málaga province famous for its gorge and its bullring, and fell in love with wine early — not as an heir to a bodega, but as a reader, thinker, and drinker. His path wound through journalism, scholarship, and eventually the wine trade: he became a Champagne importer, spending years navigating the chalk cellars of Épernay and the grower-producers of the Marne. It gave him a reference point he would never lose.
In 2012, captivated by the history of sherry and its centrality to Andalusian culture, he moved to Sanlúcar de Barrameda — the windswept Atlantic town at the mouth of the Guadalquivir, famous for manzanilla and flamenco. He did not arrive to join the established houses. He arrived to ask a disruptive question: what if the Palomino grape, grown on the same albariza soils that mirror Champagne's chalk, was treated with the same reverence as Chardonnay — and allowed to speak without fortification, without filtration, without the industrial additives that had become standard?
With his wife Carmen Caballero, an agricultural engineer, he established Alba Viticultores — a collective project that also involves fellow winemakers Alejandro Muchada (of Muchada Léclapart) and Miguel Gómez, backed by local mayetos who tend the old vines. Fernando also co-founded the Champagne-Sherry gathering in tandem with the legendary Anselme Selosse of Jacques Selosse, creating a dialogue between two chalk regions that the conventional wine world had kept apart.
His first wine, Alba 2013, was a natural unfiltered white with no added alcohol or sulfur, barely touched by flor, designed to let the albariza and the Palomino shine. The thousand bottles sold out instantly. The project had found its voice.
The Place — Where the Atlantic Meets the Albariza
Sanlúcar de Barrameda sits at the northern tip of the Sherry Triangle, where the Guadalquivir river meets the Atlantic. The landscape is bleached white by albariza — a soil of chalk and limestone that cracks in summer, reflecting heat and light back onto the vines, while storing winter rainwater deep underground. It is the same geology that underpins Champagne, and Fernando has spent a decade proving the comparison is not poetic but geological.
La Charanga and the Pagos
Fernando settled on roughly a hectare and a half of old vines in La Charanga, a prized parcel within Pago Mahina, which he considers the finest in the region. He also works El Campeonísimo (vines over a hundred years old), Confitero and Coronado in Pago Miraflores, and Las Alegrías in Pago Carrascal. Each plot is vinified separately, and many wines carry the name of the vineyard.
No Treatments, Only Wind
The warm, arid climate and the persistent Levante wind allow Fernando to work without any chemical treatments at all — no pesticides, no herbicides, no synthetic fungicides. Nature is left to thrive. He follows biodynamic principles, burying horns and buying preparations, tracking the moon's position. "On a leaf day, my wines seem reduced. Even my mum in Ronda notices the effect of the moon."
The Garage in Barrio Alto
The winery is a small garage in Sanlúcar's Barrio Alto — six plastic fermentation vats, a few old sherry casks, pallets of bottles, and barely enough room to turn around during harvest. It is tight, improvised, and functional. "We hardly have room in the winery during the harvest... I have a friend who refers to my Mosto and Ancestral wines as Alba Liquidity."
Standing Up for Mayetos
Fernando is vocal about the exploitation of mayetos — the small growers who gamble their money making wine, store it, and then sell it to big bodegas for 60 cents a litre. "People like Ramiro Ibáñez are doing things well, paying growers for their work, but the only revolution here must involve the vineyard and paying country people decent prices."
Winemaking — The Simpler, the Better
Fernando is entirely self-taught in the cellar. He follows intuition, the vintage, and the personality of each plot — never a recipe. "I do trials and decide whether it becomes a sparkling or whether I leave the flor or not based on the vineyard and the vintage; wines can easily get spoiled and that's risky with such a tiny production." The result is a body of work that defies genre: sparkling wines aged sur lattes, still whites with and without flor, and a carbonic-maceration red — all from Palomino or Palomino-based blends, all from albariza.
The methods are deliberately archaic. Grapes are often foot-trodden. For sparkling wines, he follows the méthode ancestrale — bottling during fermentation so the wine captures its own bubbles, with no liqueur de tirage and no expedition liqueur. Disgorging is done by hand: bottles rest in the freezer for six to seven hours until the neck freezes, the cap is released, the bottle is topped up with the same wine, and resealed with a crown cap. "I don't find cork interesting. It means more hard work and it has added risks."
Everything is unfined and unfiltered. Sulfur is avoided entirely or used in homeopathic doses. There are no additives, no tartaric acid corrections, no gypsum, no fortification with brandy. "I am intolerant to commercial manzanilla. They now have very high levels of alcohol, tartaric acid, gypsum and sulfur and they tend to be heavily filtered." His wines are the anti-sherry: alive, unstable in the best way, and utterly transparent.
The Wines — Plot by Plot, Bottle by Bottle
Each wine is named for the vineyard that grew it, vinified separately, and released in tiny lots only when Fernando decides it is ready. The range moves between still and sparkling, flor and no flor, with a consistency of salinity and chalk that could only come from Sanlúcar.
Sobre Tabla
Natural whiteFermented in two sherry casks with distinct personalities, with minimum intervention. A natural unfiltered white that lets the albariza and Palomino speak — almond, sea salt, and the quiet oxidation of honest ageing. The successor to the inaugural Alba 2013.
Las Alegrías
Pago Carrascal whiteFrom the Las Alegrías vineyard in Pago Carrascal — a wine of candied ginger, hazelnut, and briny edge. Some vintages spend years under flor; others are protected from it. The 2014 version, aged four years under veil, has become a cult bottle among natural wine collectors.
Confitero Ancestral
Pét-natFrom the highest part of Pago Miraflores, foot-trodden Palomino fermented for ten days then bottled to finish fermentation in the bottle. Apricot, cider apple, citrus peel, chalk and seashells. Disgorged by hand after freezing the neck. Crown cap. No liqueur added.
Alba Brut Nature
Traditional method sparklingThe wine that won — and refused — the Guía Peñín Best Newcomer award. Palomino made in the traditional method, aged sur lattes, disgorged by hand with zero expedition liqueur. A wine of striking purity that redefines what sparkling wine from the Sherry Triangle can be.
El Campeonísimo
Old-vine whiteFrom Palomino vines planted over a hundred years ago in Pago Miraflores — a wine of depth, concentration, and ancient-vine intensity. Fernando spends more time in this vineyard than anywhere else, stepping on albariza while the feria rages in town.
Alba Rojo
Carbonic redA rare red from the Sherry Triangle — Palomino or a Palomino-based blend fermented through carbonic maceration with zero added sulfur. Light, juicy, and deliberately unconventional: a red wine made by a man who refuses to accept that Sanlúcar is only for fino.
Legacy — The Revolution Starts with the Vineyard
Fernando Angulo matters because he attacked the Sherry Triangle from the inside. He did not arrive with capital or inherited vineyards; he arrived with curiosity, a Champagne education, and a refusal to accept that Sanlúcar's destiny was industrial manzanilla. In a region where growers are paid 60 cents a litre and encouraged to rip out vines older than thirty years, Fernando has made the mayeto the hero of his story.
His legacy is the proof that Palomino on albariza can produce wines of international calibre — sparkling, still, and oxidative — without fortification, without additives, and without the apparatus of the big bodegas. The Champagne-Sherry dialogue he established with Anselme Selosse has opened a door between two chalk regions that will outlast his own production. And his refusal of the Peñín award was not a stunt; it was a statement of solidarity with the growers who do the real work.
Through Alba Viticultores, he has also created a model of collective production — four winemakers, shared vineyards, shared risks — that offers an alternative to the isolation of the small producer. The bottles are scarce, the labels look like temporary stickers, and the caps are borrowed from beer. But the wine inside is art-like, free-thinking, and unmistakably Sanlúcar. "Fernando Angulo is more than a winemaker; he's an artist of the wine world, using free thinking to create art-like wines." The Dali of the albariza, indeed.