Saca of September, 2010
D.O. Montilla-Moriles
15% alc.
Limited release: 1,500 bottles (50 cl.)
Bodega: Gracia, Montilla
In the Bodega Principal of Gracia Hermanos, next to the railway station in Montilla, there is a small solera of very old PX made of only seven butts that have spent many years as “NO”—protected from the regular regime of extractions of the Pérez Barquero group, and refreshed only very sporadically and in minor quantities. For this release we have selected four of those “NO” butts.
This is a very old PX, of truly hard to estimate age but decidedly well above 30. It was likely ‘touched’ in its early days with a dollop of old oloroso, and it has aged following a regime that falls somewhere in between the styles we know as Montillano (releases number 3 and 12 of La Bota de Pedro Ximénez) and Jerezano (release number 11 of La Bota de Pedro Ximénez), closer in any case to the former, and unquestionably older and more complex than any of the three. At 15% abv, it has undergone oxidative ageing in butt under wider air space than the Montilla traditional “a tocadedos” (fingers touch) measure. The resulting wine has an unusual balance between fruit and noble oxidation.
It is a dessert all by itself, served between 12 and 14ºC. Bottled in September 2010, it will gain in depth and complexity with time, even—in fact especially—once the bottle has been started.