Original Exceptional Harvest PX 2011 12.5%, Ximenez Spinola

Appearance
Bright gold colour with old gold reflections, some depth, legs.
Nose
Lovely, rich and full, hint oily and sweet - very over-ripe grapes, some light texture and a traces of Fino Sherry, apricot jam and perfume, amazingly fresh.
Palate
Low acid but retains a certain tang, not over sweet (somewhere around 50grams/litre?) but certainly sweet, traces of nut oil, apricot, grapes and yeast from the batonnage. Quite a luscious texture, like a German Auslese, but lower acid and made from PX. Lovely, long, unusual, moreish...
Comments
The grapes were picked 21 days after normal table wine ripeness and fermented without soleo (sun-drying) on their skins. The wine was aged for 4 months on its lees in American oak butts (PX butts?) undergoing light batonnage (lees stirring), and lightly filtered into bottle. As far as I know this is the first vintage of this wine, which is unusual and gorgeous. It dos not claim to be Sherry, but is included here because it is nearly Sherry. The winemaker was the consultant oenologist Ramiro Ibanez Espinar.
Price
About 20 euros in Spain, not sure about UK availability.

Pedro Ximenez 15%, Ximenez Spinola

Appearance
Dense black-brown-walnut through amber to yellow rim, pronounced legs.
Nose
Full, rich, intense, very slightly cooked, lots of fruit pulp - figs, dates, pasas, apricots, traces of old barrels, molasses, caramel, very fruity but with less of the toasted bread/coffe aroma.
Palate
Unctuously sweet, concentrated, deep and intense, lots of texture of dried fruit skin/pulp, extremely viscous, slightest trace of Marmite hiding behind the complexity. Amazing.
Comments
This was bottle number 2659 of 9215 released that year (2007). It is hard to say how old the wine is, but I would guess somewhere around 15 years. The style is, to me, more Montilla than Jerez, but none the worse for that, it is a wonderful wine.
Price
This cost me 50 euros a couple of years ago. It will be about £50-60 now in the UK.