PEREZ BARQUERO - Sherry

"Perez Barquero was established in 1905 and still have some soleras from that time (the foundational soleras), from which very small quantities of extremely old and concentrated wines are withdrawn and bottled from time to time. They own 100 hectares of vineyards in some of the best locations in the appellation, in Sierra de Montilla and in Moriles Alto, planted with a majority of Pedro Ximenez, and control a further 400 hectares of vineyards belonging to other grape growers. With this they produce an impressive array of both dry and sweet wines (plus brandy and vinegar), whose main characteristic is balance, elegance and finesse. They stock 10,000 500- to 600-liter American oak barrels, the famous botas where they age their wines following the soleras and criaderas system. Perez Barquero represents the quality summit of Montilla-Moriles. Their Finos usually have a lot number, whose first two digits seem to be the bottling year. The oldest wines, the ones labelled 1905, which is the year their soleras were created, were only bottled once in 2002, around 1,000 bottles of each, so the bottles should be decanted in advance to give the wines the chance to breath." Luis Gutierrez - The Wine Advocate