Now that I have your attention. OK do yourself a favour and track down some Toro Albalá Don PX wine, some good quality vanilla ice cream, and pour a little wine over the top of a couple of scoops. I guarantee you will never be the same and will more than likely spend the rest of your life enjoying this simple pleasure.

This wine is so wonderful and complex it is difficult to describe. It is virtually black in colour and has an almost syrupy consistency. This is how one wine writer described it “A concentrated nose of tobacco, crème de cacao and liquorice greets you while the palate is a beguiling mixture of sweet and bitter flavours with a dense concentration and length that seems to live forever”. The more of this you taste the more flavours reveal themselves to the point where enjoyment dominates your thoughts and identifying flavours seems moot.

We discovered this wine at a recent dinner where we opted for the wine flight, with wines matched with dishes individually. This is a great way to expose yourself to wines you may not usually taste for one reason or another. It also allows you to soak up the expertise of the sommelier, when you would like to use their services, but find it a bit confronting (or are worried they will bring a bottle that is too expensive).

The Don PX is a fortified single-variety wine from southern Spain made from the white Pedro Ximenez grape, known as PX.  While it is a fortified it is functionally used as a desert wine and this is where it really comes to the fore. It lies sealed in oak barrels for a minimum of 25 years, after which vintages are selected for release only when they have attained the character required to make this fabulous wine. In 1970 Toro Albalá was the first Montilla producer to bottle dessert-styled Pedro Ximénez and remains the world’s only specialist in 100% vintage PX.

On doing a little research on this wine I discovered that elderly Spanish gentlemen pour it over ice cream while sitting on street corners solving the problems of the world. What a great idea! Give it a crack, you will never be the same 🙂

PS in Australia you can purchase this at Dan Murphy’s, current retail vintages are 1983 and 1985, excellent.

Author: Neal (The Wine Wankers)