Not to be mistaken for the 1968 at 43.5% (black label) that was excellent as well but not as stellar. Colour: amber. Nose: really a perfect, fairly delicate but quite assertive sherry, starting with some flints and touches of earth and unfolding with coffee, chocolate, prunes, raisins and many other dried fruits. What’s particularly interesting is that there are also coastal notes behind the sherry, which doesn’t happen too often. Other than that, we have also various herbs and teas and just faint touches of tar and liquorice. In short, it’s both rich and delicate and jammy and coastal. Mouth: a good idea of perfection. An amazing punch at 43.5% and a richness that’s everything but cloying, as if the coastal notes kept lifting the whole to ‘elegant levels’ while it’s still quite massive. Well, I know what I mean. Many dried fruits, herbs, nuts and a faint saltiness. Finish: very long, balanced, fruity… Notes of strawberries. Comments: benchmark sherried whisky, full of… fullness but not heavy. When I first scored this baby in 2002, I came up with a 93-mark. I’m not far from thinking it’s rather worth 94 but for the sake of simplicity, let’s keep it ‘low’. After all, it’s now become an ‘old and unobtainable’ bottling

---

Show more

---

---

Show less

---