This is a very highly rated, very special wine by the guys at Equipo Navazos – one of a series of Palo Cortados (together with the numbers 41 and 48) from the bota “GF 30”, a bota of wine with an estimated age of somewhere between 50 to 80 years, originally made by Gaspar Florido in Sanlucar but rescued by Equipo Navazos from industrial surroundings in the outskirts in 2007 and now housed in the “Sacristy” of Bodegas Pedro Romero in central Sanlucar, very near Gaspar Florido’s original bodega.

I have not had the 41 but have had the 48 twice and now this and I would have to say I have had mixed experiences. The first time I had the 48 I had it during a game of snooker with a good mate and although we loved its nose and flavours, we both found it just too chewy and astringent – real walnut skin juice. The second time I had it, on the other hand, it was my favourite wine at a very high quality cata of top class palo cortados – the sheer range of flavours giving it a slight edge despite a strange nose.

I took this 51 to a pretty special dinner with a group of great friends who happen to be pretty vocal wine enthusiasts. If this were a champagne blog I would write you a dissertation on the absolutely sublime magnum of Henri Abelé Millesime 1990, not to mention a white 2007 Chateau Rayas and an awesome 2008 Les Chenes by Michel Lafarge, amongst others (this is how I know they are great friends). We also gave it every chance to shine – bang on temperature, decanted in advance, good stemware and a receptive audience.

It was a beautiful chestnut colour and had a fine, spicey almost sweet nose. It was also superbly structured – an acidic attack and big full shape to it – and full of toasted (almost burnt), nutty caramel, but, particularly in the company (and maybe in part due to the expectation) just a little one dimensional in flavour and not quite holding its shape for long.

Overall, to be quite honest it suffered a little in comparison to the other wines and did not quite live up to its own hype. Very nice but I really start to wonder if these wines are great for tastings (I can imagine this doing well compared to other palos) but not quite as great on the road – it reminded me of the way the even more highly rated Bota de Amontillado 49 failed to impress at a dinner back in May.

Coming back to this a good while after I last tasted it. 

The first impression is the colour – it is a light brown, orange amber – and the second is the sweet honey in the nose. To be blunt tonight the nose reminded me of a Crunchie Bar – albeit a Crunchie Bar with a bit of background alcohol. On a deeper inhale there are also notes of the fruit of a dessert wine (not a PX either).

On the palate the flavours are a bit more black treacle/toasted caramel – some nice acidity and heat. I don’t get the honey or fruit at all on the palate – although maybe a little bit in the texture – all in all it is a juicy mouthful. 

This is a truly exceptional palo cortado.

It is from one of the “foundation” soleras – a solera in production since 1860 – at Bodegas Emilio Hidalgo in Jerez, in my view the foremost wine maker in sherry today. Production is limited – there are two “sacas” of 150 bottles per year – manual, and natural.  The wine is bottled by hand without any kind of filtering or stabilization. The average age of the wine is well north of 50 years.

We tasted it at the end of an excellent dinner washed down by some very nice chablis and claret and after a decent decant. (I always recommend decanting a really good sherry – especially one of these older specimens.)  In terms of accompaniment, we had some dark chocolate arranged but to be honest once we started tasting the sherry we stopped worrying about such distractions.

It is quite unlike a lot of the old palo cortados I have tasted: fine, light, elegant and yet still intense, rich and powerful.

It is a brilliant, very clear, reddish caoba in colour and, as sherries do, has the most amazing nose. From afar, (through the neck of the decanter) it is sweet and fruity – raisins like a PX – but get it up close and swirl it and it has tremendous power and a huge range of notes.

The mouthfeel is clean and fine – nothing oily or dusty here, just silky – and nose is matched by the flavours on the palate: caramel, nuts, then toffee, then treacle toffee, then treacle nut toffee, then chocolate, coffee, tobacco, leather, roast chestnuts. It is almost unbelievably long: just keep tasting it for one, two, more minutes and forget about “after taste” – it holds its shape and its balance beautifully.

More than anything it is strikingly light on its feet for a wine of such power. Many very old wines around now can be excessively acidic or astringent – walnut skin concentrate – but this is compact and balanced. In fact it is almost too easy to drink – the years have just made it lighter and more integrated.

An extraordinary wine – pretty close to perfection and a real privilege in every respect.

Wines like these make writing blogs fun I can tell you. This is another top drawer Palo Cortado – from Bodegas Tradicion, a crew who specialize in very old sherries like this one – a 30 year old palo cortado. 

This has a (burnt) citrus vibe on the nose, then a lot of (also burnt) caramel in the palate, an oily, buttery mouthfeel, a little bit of alcoholic heat and a little acidity. Really very good – real structure to it.  

This is the wine that first made me sit up and take serious notice of sherry and it is still among my favourite wines. Just the thing to lift one’s spirits after the first long day of what promises to be a long week.

The first time I tasted this I was just blown away by the number of aromas, flavours, and spice. In part I was caught by surprise but even now I find this wine has a depth and and variety to rival anything. In fact now when I come back to it I am equally impressed by the sense of lightness and balance, the lack of astringency. It really is a masterpiece.

I love them and they are sometimes really great but palo cortados are probably the most overhyped of sherry wines – they bring the blarney out of makers everywhere. They get their name from the heiroglyphics that the cellarmen put on the barrels in the bodega. Specifically, they are selected as suitable for making fino under flor and therefore marked with a straight line or “palo” (literally, stick). However, shortly afterwards the barrel is chosen instead for “traditional” oxidative ageing (perhaps because the flor doesn’t develop as it should) and so the cellarman (“capataz”) strikes a line through the first one to make a cross – a cut stick, or “palo cortado”. The wine is then fortified to ensure the flor does not grow back and then the wine is traditionally aged.

As a result, what you get is a creature with a little time under flor – compared to an oloroso with none and an amontillado with plenty (amontillados are allowed several years under before the wine is fortified to allow oxidative ageing). The resulting difference in character can be amazing: palo cortados can be much lighter than an oloroso and punchier than an amontillado.

This one is Gonzalez Byass’ 12 year aged palo cortado – a young and mellow example of the class that would be an excellent dinner wine – could go anywhere a full bodied red wine can and beyond. Clear and chestnut brown, sweet on the nose and chocolate caramel in flavour. Maybe just a little bit of heat but not too acidic or concentrated – and overall nicely balanced.

It really is a nice drop and criminally inexpensive – this one was a mere 17 euros, which when you consider its age and the effort that went into it is quite remarkable. Given GB’s reach it should also be obtainable widely.