Amber with slight ruddy tints through to a pale greeny yellow rim, legs.
Nose
Beautiful, lots of nuts and dried fruits; toasted hazelnut, almond, date, fig and wine-soaked oak. Supremely elegant with just a trace of flor bitterness balancing tantalisingly with the apparent sweetness these old wines have, just a hint fatter than an Amontillado, rich, clean, balanced and quite intense.
Palate
Full, but in terms of flavour rather than weight, delicious mellow oloroso flavours of walnut in syrup, and that apparently sweet roundness, but with the added dimension of lots of toasted hazelnuts and an oaky tang. Very tangy and lively, with decent acidity which gives it terrific length. Very complex. Quite lovely.
Comments
This is a classic old Palo Cortado. These wines, which are quite rare, could be described as Olorosos with the aroma of Amontillado. They are wines which started out with flor, but didn't want to be Finos, and quickly lost it, hopefully in the anada/sobretabla stage, when they would end up in the Palo Cortado Solera. They are categorised as follows, according to their weight: Palo Cortado; Dos, Tres and Cuatro Cortados. The term translates literally as "cut stick" from the cask marking which is an angled stroke with a short horizontal stroke across it. More strokes mean fuller wine. Tres and Cuatro Cortados are rarely seen, in fact W&H is the only bodega I can think of which even does a Dos.
Anyway, this one comes from Palomino grapes grown in the Balbaina vineyards, was fermented at 22C, fortified to 15% and put into the Fino sobretablas, but changed its mind while in the criaderas. It was removed, fortified to 18% and transferred to the sobretablas of the Palo Cortado Solera of 396 butts, where it aged for an average of over 20 years. Follow?
Price
About £15-17.00 per half bottle. I got this at Henderson Wines in Edinburgh. UK importer: Ehrmanns
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