Thursday 14 February 2013

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.



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