Don PX Convento Selección 1949

The 1949 Don PX Reserva Especial differs from the other old wines from the winery as it is less dark, it even has a (very dark) translucent tone compared with the others, maybe because it has 2% more alcohol. It feels incredibly elegant and balanced, fresher in comparison than the beasts from 1962 and 1946, medicinal, full of spicy notes of cinnamon, cloves, a touch of ash, and the smell of an antique shop. The palate is fluid, sweet and fresh. Putting a drinking window to these wines feels a bit silly. You should drink it whenever you have the occasion. Drink 2013-2040.

This is a peculiar winery, a little eccentric and unusual, a family affair created in 1922 although their roots can be traced back to the 19th century. The core of the winery is located inside an old electricity plant in Aguilar de la Frontera, south of Cordoba, in the heart of the Montilla-Moriles appellation and directed by collector, inventor and entrepreneur Antonio Sanchez. They sell 650,000 liters of wine per year, of which 40% is exported and sold in 27 different countries. They are growing in the US, the UK, Australia, and also with increasing interest in Asia, “mainly for the sweet wines,” Antonio Sorgato, the export manager of the firm, tells me. “We are selling sweet wines, but Fino, it’s much more difficult.” This is not something unique to them, as the whole Montilla-Moriles is better known for its sweet, dark, unctuous Pedro Ximenez wines. All the wines they produce are of course fermented from Pedro Ximenez white grapes, but for the sweet wines the grapes are sun-dried, dehydrated into raisins, and the resulting wine is brown in color which gets darker as the wine ages and concentrates in barrel. The oldest examples are an opaque black with an amber rim as dense as motor oil. They have a most impressive collection of single vintage PX wines going back to the time of the Second World War. - Lusi Gutiérrez.