Lustau Vors Pedro Ximénez 500mL NV

Lustau Vors Pedro Ximénez is a sweet sherry from Jerez carrying the region's highest age classification.

Pedro Ximénez grapes are laid out on esparto mats after picking and left in the Andalusian sun until they shrivel to raisins, concentrating their sugar to an extraordinary degree. The thick juice is fortified almost immediately, leaving hundreds of grams of sugar per litre, and the wine then ages oxidatively in cask through a solera. VORS, from vinum optimum rare signatum, may be used only for wines whose certified average age exceeds thirty years, a figure the Consejo Regulador of Jerez verifies by laboratory analysis. Decades in wood cost a great deal to evaporation, so quantities are tiny. Lustau was founded in Jerez de la Frontera in 1896.

It is best served at around 13 degrees in a small glass, alone or with dark chocolate and hard cheeses, and keeps for months once opened.