Toro Albalá Don PX Pedro Ximénez Gran Reserva 1990 375ml

Toro Albala reserve select lots of their best vintage wines for the Gran Reserva label. These unusually rich Pedro Ximenez wines are destined for a very long aging in oak barrels. After filling and sealing, these barrels are left for decades in their single-vintage state. It's during this slow maturation that the wines undertake their delicious, savoury, rancio transformation (though controlled exposure to oxygen) which brings a kind of nutty, iodine character that infinitely complexes the wine but also gives it added freshness. Naturally, as the wines concentrate in flavour and texture, the colour darkens and mouth-feel develops accordingly. After a minimum of 25 years in barrel, vintages are selected for release only when they have attained these classic hallmarks of aged P.X.

"The 1990 Don PX Gran Reserva has unusually high sugar, close to 400 grams (when this range is usually less than 360). Compared with the rest of the wines, this feels like a very good value. These wines mature in old 550-liter American oak casks for decades, and the wines have great concentration. It felt unusually perfumed, a little spirity and with notes that made me think of Moscatel-notes of orange peel and flowers, and of course the raisin and dry dates and figs from these wines made with raisins. It's sweet and dense like motor oil and leaves a combination of raisins and chocolate in the spicy and faintly warm finish. This was bottled in early 2019." Luis Gutiérrez, The Wine Advocate

Country: Spain
Producer: Toro Albala
Region: Montilla Moriles