Thursday 16 August 2012

Amontillado Tio Diego 18%, Bodegas Valdespino

Appearance
Pure amber with slight coppery tints, fading through unburnished gold to yellow at the rim with a trace of green.
Nose 
Very refined and integrated, soft but complex. A definite Amontillado aroma with fewer of the saline flor characteristics of a younger wine, but perhaps just a trace of autolysis along with toasted hazelnut and linseed oil, beautifully controlled oxidation and a hint of well used butts, a suggestion of sweetness.
Palate
Dry, slightly tangy yet well rounded, the nutty oily bodega butt flavour grows slowly on the palate to a greater intensity than expected. And a greater complexity too, as it has passed through 20 criaderas and 2 soleras! Good and dry but not at all astringent, traces of walnut there too.
Comments
Very fine. Tio Diego is one of those very few single vineyard wines and comes from the Inocente vineyard in the pago Macharnudo. In fact the solera is fed from the Fino Inocente solera when the wine has spent nearly 10 years under flor, and then at least a further 8 years without flor in a very old solera consisting of 10 criaderas plus solera. The wine is bottled in autumn every year at about 18 years of age.


Price
Around £ 17.00. I bought this from Dougie at the excellent Lupe Pinto Deli in Edinburgh.

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