Toro Albalá Don PX Vieja Cosecha 1973

Toro Albalá Don PX Vieja Cosecha is a vintage-dated sweet Pedro Ximénez from the 1973 harvest, bottled at 17 per cent.

Toro Albalá works from Aguilar de la Frontera in Montilla-Moriles, the Andalucían region south of Córdoba where Pedro Ximénez, not Palomino, is the dominant grape and where the heat is such that the wines reach full ripeness without chaptalisation. For the Don PX wines the grapes are sun-dried on esparto mats until they shrivel to raisins, which concentrates the sugar to a point where fermentation barely gets going before the wine is fortified. The vintage-dated museum releases are then held in the family's Aguilar de la Frontera cellars for decades, slowly losing volume to evaporation and gaining density and complexity in the process. Wines of this age are a different proposition from the younger blended PX: not simply sweeter, but far more savoury and layered, with the raisined sweetness pulled into balance by the long oxidative ageing. Only small quantities of each vintage are released.

Serve small measures lightly chilled, around 10–12°C; it is the classic match for dark chocolate, coffee desserts or vanilla ice cream, and an opened bottle keeps for months.

*Every effort is made to ensure the current vintage is accurate; however, variations can occur. If you are after a specific vintage, please contact us prior to ordering.