Barbadillo Aged Sherries
Limited stocks of four very old and rare sherries have been released for sale as part of our sherry promotion, following a recent sale at Christie`s. Details below.
Antonio Barbadillo SA, the famous Manzanilla house, has recently released a small amount of very old and rare sherry. These wines are known in the Barbadillo bodegas as the “Reliquias”, or relics, due to their great age and extreme scarcity. Traditionally they were wines that were offered on special occasions to honoured guests of the Barbadillo family and have been lying in the bodegas for several decades. At Christies on Thursday 20th May 1999, 12 bottles of the Relics (3 of each style) were sold from between £360 and £420 per bottle, and according to Christies, achieved record prices for any Sherry sold at Auction. The buyers are known to be private collectors from the UK, continental Europe and the United States.
It is difficult to say precisely how old these wines actually are, but Barbadillo’s records report that they are in the region of 150 years old. The extreme concentration, austerity and complexity of these wines definitely substantiate these claims.
The Amontillado “Soberana” was in existence when the founder of Barbadillo bought the “Bodega del Toro” in 1821, this wine was blended with the “Hindemburg” Amontillado in 1921. Both of these wines were already very old amontillados when the new blend of the solera began in 1921. (Sold for £360 per bottle).
The Oloroso dates back to the earliest days of the Barbadillo company, the solera having been started by the founder, Don Benigno Barbadillo, in the first half of the 19th Century. (Sold for £380 per bottle).
The Palo Cortado‘s origins, although believed to be older, have been traced back as far as 1850 during the lifetime of Don Manuel Argüeso who began this solera. (Sold for £370 per bottle).
The Pedro Ximénez certainly pre-dates the 1880’s when it was left to the Barbadillo family by Don Rafael Terán Carrera. Even at this time it was already a very old wine that would certainly have begun its solera life in the first half of the 19th Century. (Sold for £420 per bottle).
None of these wines have been aged by the traditional solera method whereby an “añada” replaces the first “criadera” and so on. The solera butts in each case have only been “refreshed” as necessary when the Barbadillo family have drawn off small quantities of their reserves over the generations. Even then the wines used to refresh the soleras have always been of a similar or identical age. Therefore, these wines could be considered to be some of the very oldest cask wines still in existence and unique in every sense of the word.
These wines are presented in a traditional hand-blown decanter within a presentation case. Only limited quantities of each style of these extremely rare sherries have been bottled.
THE BARBADILLO “RELICS” - “Six generations of maturation”
“Wine is a synthesis of essential elements: when combined with wisdom and balance it is given both body and soul. A fundamental aspect of wine is time: the more time, the more history and ultimately, the better quality.”
Some wines transcend mans’ natural lifetime. Produced in the bodegas, wine’s cathedrals of time, these sherries bear witness to their outstanding class and the generosity of the past. These wines were originally chosen to honour the most celebrated visitors to the bodegas, as a toast to the customs and name of Jerez.
Very few wines, (albeit a fraction of some of these wines), have survived the passage of time from one generation to another, and those which have, have been jealously guarded by their proprietors. Some wines from Barbadillo’s bodegas can boast of this lengthy ageing and since the 19th Century they have spent more than a hundred years evolving in a slow, silent and careful maturation to become iridescent-toned “relics” of the wines they began their life as. For this reason they are called the “Reliquias Barbadillo”: four sherries that are the culmination and living record of no less than six generations in Sanlúcar de Barrameda.
The Barbadillo relics are beautifully presented in traditional hand-blown, glass decanters.
Available to order now £299.00 each, 1×75cl (any style)
Extra £9.99 for safe-delivery.
AMONTILLADO
This highly impressive amontillado is clean, bright and dark golden and comes from the bodegas of Pedro Rodriguez e Hijos owned by Barbadillo. The wine originated from an amontillado known as “The Sovereign” found in Barbadillo’s Bodega del Toro and was blended with another very old amontillado known as “The Hindemburg” from the bodegas belonging to the Count of Aldana. Don Antonio Barbadillo Ambrossy (1863-1921) exchanged ten butts of manzanilla for each butt of this wine which even then was extremely old, but still retained its delicacy and excellence.
Complex, but well balanced, austere, dry and elegant, it has delicate notes of nutshell and almonds. Full and dry on the palate, it still retains the salty tang from when it was ageing under flor as a young manzanilla, with light, seductive, but distinct hints of wood.
OLOROSO
When Don Antonio Ambrossy died in 1921, a wine called “Grandfather’s” was discovered in his will, in reference to his own grandfather Benigno Barbadillo Hortigüela, the founder of the Barbadillo Bodegas. This wine has since been passed down from grandfather to grandson to the sixth generation without being touched, it has therefore been maturing for more than one hundred and fifty years.
This extra dry oloroso has a clean, dark mahogany colour with amber gold tints.
It has wonderfully intense aromas of nutty wood and its great age shows through its extremely full body. This is a superbly complex and multi-structured wine.
PALO CORTADO
Barbadillo obtained some very old wines from the bodegas of Don Manuel Argüeso for which they paid 14,000 pesos per butt at a time when manzanilla only cost 1,200 pesos. The difference in price indicates that these wines were already very old. These wines were blended with wines from the “sacristy”, the area within the bodegas where the oldest and finest wines are cellared. As a result of this blend of old wines a solera of Palo Cortado was started in the Bodega, “Casa de la Cilla”. The “reliquia” that has been bottled is the “no” butt of the first class of this Solera.
The wine has a clean, mahogany colour with tints of gold and iodine and is extremely pungent and aromatic. It has a rich flavour of aged oak with a slightly bitter after-taste that lends itself to be enjoyed as a wine to be slowly savoured for its huge complexity and elegance. Full on the nose, balanced and dry on the palate this is a uniquely persistent wine upon which to dwell and contemplate.
PEDRO XIMENEZ
This originates from a few hogsheads of very old Pedro Ximénez that were given to Don Antonio Ambrossy towards the end of the 19th Century. These wines were the base for a Solera of mature wines that began in the “Potro” bodega that Don Antonio Ambrossy acquired only two days before he died.
This Pedro Ximénez has a very deep, almost black colour with hints of Topaz and iodine on the rim. The nose is extremely complex with intense raisin aromas overlying the wood characteristics. In the mouth the thick cloying richness slowly disentangles itself and the sweet, silky finish persists for a very long time. A wonderful climax to a good meal.