Valdespino Moscatel Toneles Viejísimo - 37,5 cl.
HK$ 2,152.78
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The NV Moscatel Toneles has reached a mythical status locally in Spain. It’s an extremely old, concentrated and powerful sweet wine that was long forgotten, because there was no market for it. The color is dark brown, almost opaque with amber-green edges. The ever-changing nose is an explosion of spices (curry and cinnamon) and noble woods, and from the sheer concentration it displays a myriad of roasted coffee, dark chocolate, balsamic herbs and even a note of coconut. After some time in the glass the roasted orange notes of Muscat come back intermixed with very spicy incense notes. Give it more time and it smells of camphor. It’s fascinating to smell it over the course of a few hours - even days. The palate is immensely concentrated, with the alcohol perfectly integrated and the extreme sweetness compensated by a piercing acidity that reminds me of some century-old Madeiras. It ends with an acute coffee note. The aftertaste is eternal. It is exceptional that such an old wine (it could be over 80 years of average age) keeps the freshness and balance, but when this happens, the wine is exceptional. A world-class sweet wine that shows what aged Muscat is able for. With its 430 grams of residual sugar, this wine is indestructible, but only 100 bottles are withdrawn and bottled yearly from a single, large cask. Drink 2013-2034.
Features
Style
Occasions
Winery
Size
Appellation
Alcohol
15.0%
Grapes
Serving
Between 12ºC and 14ºC
Winemaking
Aged with the traditional Soleras system.
Description
For decades, Valdespino Moscatel Toneles slept in a forgotten corner of the historic Jerez winery, contained in a single centenary cask, as if waiting for the right moment to speak again. This oxidative jewel, which could be more than 80 years old on average, is more than a wine: it is a liquid testimony of another era. The Valdespino family, with more than seven centuries of winemaking history in the Marco de Jerez, decided not to sell it for years, when the market was not ready to understand a creature of such complexity. It was a brave, almost quixotic decision to preserve this elixir instead of sacrificing it to commercial oblivion. Today, Valdespino Moscatel Toneles is bottled in tiny quantities: barely 100 bottles a year, each one carefully extracted from the single large barrel that gives the wine its name.
Valdespino Moscatel Toneles comes from Moscatel grapes grown in the albariza soils of the Pago de Chipiona, where the Atlantic sun ripens the berries to extremes of exceptional concentration and sweetness. This type of Moscatel is harvested overripe, seeking the purest essence of the grape. After a slow fermentation, interrupted by the addition of wine alcohol, the wine begins a very long ageing process in the traditional Jerez system of criaderas and solera, although in this case, the cask remains practically static, ageing on its own for generations, protected by silence, darkness and patience.
Winemaking
Valdespino Moscatel Toneles is not made like other sweet wines. Its initial concentration already marks it as different: raisined grapes, a partial fermentation and an oxidative ageing that transforms it completely. For more than eight decades, this wine has interacted with oxygen, with the noble wood of the centenary cask and with the passage of time itself. The ageing process has led it to lose volume but gain soul, becoming a symphony of aromatic compounds and sensations that are impossible to synthesise.
Taste
The colour of Valdespino Moscatel Toneles is dark, dense, almost opaque, with green flashes on the rim that betray its extreme ageing. The nose is a changing universe: curry, noble woods, dark chocolate, roasted coffee, incense, eucalyptus, and after a few minutes, candied orange peel reappears amidst balsamic notes and exotic spices. On the palate, the sweetness (430 g/l of residual sugar) is huge but never cloying, thanks to a sharp, bright acidity that balances it with surgical precision. The finish is endless, marked by notes of coffee, bitter cocoa and a freshness that is impossible to fake. Indestructible, unclassifiable, and probably unique in the world.
Shipping to Hong Kong
Estimated transit time: 3 working days.
| Bottles | Price | Complete box |
|---|---|---|
| 1-5 bottles | HK$ 139.72 | 6 bottles, Free shipping! |
| 7-11 bottles | HK$ 139.72 | 12 bottles, Free shipping! |
| 13-17 bottles | HK$ 139.72 | 18 bottles, Free shipping! |
| 19-23 bottles | HK$ 139.72 | 24 bottles, Free shipping! |
| 25-29 bottles | HK$ 139.72 | 30 bottles, Free shipping! |
| 31-35 bottles | HK$ 139.72 | 36 bottles, Free shipping! |
| 37-41 bottles | HK$ 139.72 | 42 bottles, Free shipping! |
| 43-47 bottles | HK$ 139.72 | 48 bottles, Free shipping! |
| 49-53 bottles | HK$ 139.72 | 54 bottles, Free shipping! |
| 55-59 bottles | HK$ 139.72 | 60 bottles, Free shipping! |
