Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Alvear Pedro Ximénez Solera 1927

Alvear Pedro Ximénez Solera 1927
$50 (375ml), Cork, 16%
Source: Retail
http://www.alvear.eu/ 

We normally have a bottle of fortified on the counter here at Australian Wine Review HQ, with Rutherglen Muscat (Morris or Chambers) the typical favourite. But this month we've decided to go for something slightly different, with this sweet Pedro Ximénez up for a current road test.

Dark, treacle brown in colour, the nose is all dates and molasses with some slightly oxidative overtones. It smells quite youthful actually, but the colour suggests older material. It's a correct nose, though perhaps a smidgen simple. Palate is simple too, with lightly caramel richness and a decent serve of rancio. It's quite a bit lighter than a typical 'Classic' level Rutherglen Muscat, with a palate that is ultimately shorter and lacks the length of good Muscat.

Given the price ($50 a half) I was expecting much more from this - it's a simple wine that lacks the requisite flavour penetration for real satisfaction. 16.5/88
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Posted by Andrew Graham at 10:28 PM
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5 comments:

  1. First off, the Alvear is not a Muscat, it's made from Pedro Ximenez grapes that have been sun-dried on mats. Pedro Ximinex is one of the main grapes from Xerez (Sherry) though Alvear comes from the adjacent Montilla-Moriles.

    It's a wine made in the "solera" system wherby the wines are aged in a stack of barrel or vats. The youngest wines are in the upper barrels while the older material is at the bottom. Whenever wine is required it is removed from the bottom barrels and is replaced by wine from the barrel above which, in turn is replaced by wines from the barrel above, and so on.

    As the name suggests, the solera was begun in 1927, and so what you have in the bottle is a fractional blend of wines from 1927 to this day. Over here in Canada a half bottle goes for under C$30 and on the internet I see that there are places where it sell for as little as US$20 and 12 pounds in the UK.

    I've had this Alvear before and disagree that it lacks flavour and penetration. I don't know what condition your bottle was in but a cursory check of reviews on the internet will show that it is rich, complex and long. A wine store around the corner from where I live has a few bottles sitting in the back which hasn't sold and is considering putting it on sale. You can be sure I will be the first in line.

    Cheers...................Mahmoud.
    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for the comment Mahmoud,

    You might want to have a reread of the tasting note to work out that I was comparing it to our own Rutherglen fortified Muscats, not actually calling it one (though you did correctly point out that both were made in a solera system, so extra marks there).

    Sadly the Alvear sells for $50 a half here in Australia, at which price it doesn't compare all that well to similar priced Australian Muscat on a quality level (or Tokay for that matter, or even many other decent Spanish PX) which you will also see in the tasting note.

    Thanks for your comment anyway.
    ReplyDelete
  3. Forgot to add a smiley face on the end of that comment ;)
    ReplyDelete
  4. I have had a top notch half bottle of the 'real' 1927 solera Alvear a few years ago. Confusingly, there are two very different bottlings from the same solera. The more expensive half bottle is the 'real' 1927 solera (more older material), with a cheaper 750ml bottling of primarily younger material (still from the same solera). As with much Rutherglen muscat and tokay, bottles are not great places for these wines, and suspect sometimes the poorer showings are products of time in bottle, rather than the source material.
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  5. Could well have been a dud bottle by the sounds of it then...
    ReplyDelete

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