Community Tasting Note

Paul S wrote:

Monday, May 4, 2015 - A Tribute to Anne-Claude Leflaive (Iggy's, Hilton Hotel, Singapore): A great end to a great night. Sourced from a solera created in 1862 with an average of some 30 years of aging, this was a lovely sherry. Unusual though. After some 10 years of being aged as a Palo Cortado, it is then blended with Pedro Ximenez grapes (making up some 13% of the final cepage) before further aging. Incidentally, I think Gonzalez-Byass might just be about the only house in Jerez that still grows PX grapes in is own vineyards. In the glass, this had the salty, saline nose of a Palo Cortado, with roasted ground-nuts and dried fig peel and just that hint of penicillin going on, but these were met by sweeter PX aromas of dried cherries and raisins, a bit of mahogany and a nice waft of spice. Very nice, and the palate was every bit as good. This was a lovely, complex mouthful, with compellingly rich, off-dry layers of raisins and cherry pips and fruit skins on the attack, leaning out into a drier midpalate and then a finish of great clarity, freshness and balance, where tangy, salty Palo Cortado notes full of preserved fig peel and nutty nuances took to the fore again. I loved that interplay of rich and fresh notes and the way it all came together so that one barely noticed the 20% alcohol on the wine. Good stuff – this went really well with the deliciously unctuous epoisses dish we had to cap the meal off.

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