Barbadillo Reliquias "Relics" Palo Cortado Sherry

Wine information: 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. 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. 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. The Sherry selected for this particular bottling is the "No" butt from the first class of this "solera". An attractive iodine color, clean, with tinges of mahogany. On the nose it is complex, full and elegant with nutty wood aroma. The palate is dry and balanced, with flavors of slightly bitter, dried fruit. It is persistent and complex. (Sold at auction for £370 per bottle). 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.

 
     

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