Availability: Extremely Limited
Case Format: 1 x 75cl
Packaging: Original Wooden Case
Production: 1,000 Bottles
100 Points, The Wine Advocate
“Here, they bottled some 1,000 bottles ten years ago from a total of seven 600-liter barrels, and the quantity was replaced with wine from the 31 butts (casks) of very old wine that was selected as the 'criadera' for the solera. So the average age is kept very high, and the bottled wine that is offered now is thought to be 80- to 90-years-old on average. In any case, this small refreshing of the wine ten years ago (the bottled wine had to be replaced with slightly younger wine from the older criaderas) seems to have done it good, and ironically though a little 'younger' than the previous bottling, it seems more balanced and elegant - especially as it has had plenty of time, some ten years, to blend in the newer wine. The result is astonishing. The nose combines the obvious very old wine characteristics of rusty iron, iodine, varnish, incense and oyster shells with fresher hazelnuts, noble varnished woods and a touch of white pepper. The palate is intense, terribly complex and persistent, but with gobsmacking balance and elegance, while being powerful and very concentrated. Here, time concentrates everything - alcohol, acidity and sugar, but the wine manages to keep good balance in a sort of 'a lot of everything'. I cannot see how to improve this wine (other than perhaps the packaging). This should be virtually indestructible, as it has been slowly oxidized for close to a century, so nothing is going to harm it now.”
