Toro Albalá

Eléctrico: The Cracking Dry Sherries and new Don PX wines
Toro Albalá

Toro Albalá should need little introduction as the world’s most significant producer of Pedro Ximénez. While its astonishing, old, vintage-dated Pedro Ximénez wines may have taken the limelight in recent years, there is a great deal to be said for this historic bodega’s exciting range of dry wines. Back in the 19th century, when Toro Albalá’s forefather Antonio Sánchez Prieto first started to produce and age wines in La Noria, his emphasis was primarily on dry wines. This tradition is kept bang up-to-date by Toro Albalá’s popular, zingy Fino from the Eléctrico solera, the stunning 35-year-old Amontillado and the silky, lustrous Oloroso.

 

While all these are the same wines from the same historic soleras we have been shipping for a decade, Toro Albalá has recently overhauled its naming and labelling. Each wine in the core range now takes its prefix, Poley, from Marqués de Poley, where Poley (or Bulay) is the ancient Moorish name for Aguilar de la Frontera, the village that is home to the bodega. We also offer the 2002 vintage of the Bibendum favourite: Don PX Gran Reserva. This 20-year-old, barrel-aged wine is now simply labelled Don PX, without the Gran Reserva suffix. The current vintage is a terrific release for this wine, as the note below makes clear.

 

Finally, there’s the new vintage of Toro Albalá’s youngest sweet Pedro Ximénez— also rather confusingly labelled Don PX (but not to be confused with the barrel-aged wine)! It’s a wonderfully pure and grapey example of young Pedro aged in tinaja, and the 2020 captures all the exuberant raisin and honey notes and tangy freshness of great young Pedro Ximénez.

 

Whether dry or sweet, you’ll find excellence and value throughout the range from one of the most quality-driven and idiosyncratic Sherry producers in Andalucía.

The Wines

Toro Albalá Poley Fino del Lagar 10 Años NV (500ml)
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Toro Albalá Poley Fino del Lagar 10 Años NV (500ml)

15%ABV. Toro Albalá's Eléctrico solera produces a superb, complex and powerful Fino with vivid aromas and flavours of green apple, lemon peel, grilled almond, and iodine. One of the keys to understanding this wine is that it has not been fortified, i.e., it only has the natural alcohol from its primary fermentation. This makes for a particularly pure and vinous expression of Fino. It’s also made from 100% Pedro Ximénez grapes, which brings texture and depth. This offers an invitingly layered mid-palate and a round finish that sets it apart from Jerezano Fino and Manzanilla. However, there is still plenty of that bright, chalky crackle—so distinctive of the Fino style and the local chalky soils. The freshness is, well, electrico! As always, this is an absolute bargain.


“An attractive, fino-type wine with the salty character of this style married to plenty of candied pear aroma. Powerful, slightly tannic finish. Pure pedro ximénez.”
92 points, Jamessuckling.com
Toro Albalá Poley Fino del Lagar 10 Años NV (500ml)
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Toro Albalá Poley Oloroso En Rama 15 Años NV (500ml)
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Toro Albalá Poley Oloroso En Rama 15 Años NV (500ml)

17% ABV. From a solera approaching a century of production, this rich yet almost fully dry Oloroso averages 15 years of age.

It’s fleshy, with a round and velvety texture and a long, vibrant finish. Unfortified again, the nose throws hints of caramel, orange rind and toasted almonds. The palate is mellow and super-complex, with lively freshness and complex flavours of quince, bitter orange and loads of brown spice and tobacco notes. The finish is long and iodine-rich. Perfect to drink on its own or sensational with almonds, charcuterie and very mature cheese.

It’s fleshy, with a round and velvety texture and a long, vibrant finish. Unfortified again, the nose throws hints of caramel, orange rind and toasted almonds. The palate is mellow and super-complex, with lively freshness and complex flavours of quince, bitter orange and loads of brown spice and tobacco notes. The finish is long and iodine-rich. Perfect to drink on its own or sensational with almonds, charcuterie and very mature cheese.

“The color is a bright orange, and the youthful nose is redolent of dry apricots, toffee and walnuts. Medium- to full-bodied, velvety, it has the telltale toffee and caramel flavors of an Oloroso. The strong bitter note makes an appearance again in the finish.”
90 points, Luis Gutiérrez, The Wine Advocate
Toro Albalá Poley Oloroso En Rama 15 Años NV (500ml)
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Toro Albalá Poley Cream 10 Años NV (500ml)
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Toro Albalá Poley Cream 10 Años NV (500ml)

While ‘Cream’ conjures memories of that old bottle of sherry that our grandmothers used to drink, Toro Albalá's rendition is more like your sexy, sh-boogie-bop Prince version. It’s in fact an amazingly complex 10-year-old Oloroso (Oloroso Viejo), judiciously enriched with old Don PX and a smidgen of Fino Lagar. The result is an intricate, refined, palate-caressing wine. Aromatics of salted caramel, grilled nuts and nectarine give way to a velvety mouthfeel where the sweetness of the Don PX element is balanced by mouth-watering salinity. This is a unique and utterly delicious Cream PX that makes a terrific companion to a wide range of desserts or coffee with petits fours.

Toro Albalá Poley Cream 10 Años NV (500ml)
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Toro Albalá Poley Amontillado en Rama 35 Años (500ml)
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Toro Albalá Poley Amontillado en Rama 35 Años (500ml)

21% ABV. A textured wine of salty, nutty intensity and great finesse, this old Amontillado is drawn from a solera laid down in 1922. Like all of Toro Albalá’s wines this is made from 100% Pedro Ximénez grapes. The average age of the wine when bottled is 35 years old (five more than required for VORS in Jerez) and, remarkably, at 21% ABV, the wine has not been fortified. The ripeness of the fruit sugars at picking, then the natural evaporation that occurs with such long aging, account for the natural alcohol level in the wine.

It is a lovely, driven, spicy, nutty and smoky Amontillado with a generous, pulpy, glycerol-rich personality and a complex finish that has a twist of quinine and bitter coffee.

It is a lovely, driven, spicy, nutty and smoky Amontillado with a generous, pulpy, glycerol-rich personality and a complex finish that has a twist of quinine and bitter coffee.

“Names have changed and all labels are new; they are all named Poley and have a reference to the number of average years the wines have spent in the solera, like the NV Poley Amontillado en Rama Solera 35 Años a Amontillado. It has 21% alcohol and 235 years of average age, 15 years under flor and the rest topped up in an oxidative way. It's salty, sharp and pungent, with flavors of saltpeter, iron and iodine, finishing dry, long and with a salty twist. It's pungent, complex and very long.”
93 points, Luis Gutiérrez, The Wine Advocate
“Sharp, roasted almonds and lots of iodine. The nose has intense hints of ashes and I love it. Accompanied by caramel. Its overall profile is about complexity. On the palate, it has a lot of tension, freshness, and an explosion of flavours that grows even further. It is a wine that is very noble and that lasts very long. Salinity and power. Exciting.”
18/20 points, Ferran Centelles, jancisrobinson.com
Toro Albalá Poley Amontillado en Rama 35 Años (500ml)
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Toro Albalá Poley Palo Cortado En Rama 25 Años NV (500ml)
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Toro Albalá Poley Palo Cortado En Rama 25 Años NV (500ml)

Like all sherry-style wines in Montilla-Moriles, even the dry ones, this Palo Cortado is made from Pedro Ximénez grapes. It starts its life as a Fino, then becomes Amontillado as the flor dies and evolves further towards Palo Cortado as the character of the oxidative aging becomes stronger. You could say this wine is selected from the heavier, darker casks of Amontillado.

Bottled unfiltered with an average of 25 years, it opens with an intense with tobacco leaves, walnut and hazelnut underpinned by pepper and clove spice and notes of orange peel. The palate is dry with citrus peel and roasted nuts joined by super-fine, moreish savoury texture. It finishes with salty and intense close. It deserves the best jamón you can get your hands on.




Bottled unfiltered with an average of 25 years, it opens with an intense with tobacco leaves, walnut and hazelnut underpinned by pepper and clove spice and notes of orange peel. The palate is dry with citrus peel and roasted nuts joined by super-fine, moreish savoury texture. It finishes with salty and intense close. It deserves the best jamón you can get your hands on.

“Names have changed and all labels are new; they are all named Poley and have a reference to the number of average years the wines have spent in the solera, like the NV Poley Palo Cortado en Rama Solera 25 Años a Palo Cortado, which has 20% alcohol and 25 years of average age. It's nutty, spirity and peachy, with a touch of varnish and a sleek palate, pungent and moderately bitter, very pleasant to drink.”
93 points, Luis Gutiérrez, The Wine Advocate
Toro Albalá Poley Palo Cortado En Rama 25 Años NV (500ml)
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Toro Albalá Don PX 2020 (375ml)
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Toro Albalá Don PX 2020 (375ml)

17% ABV. The Don PX wines come from the youngest, sweet vintage wines of Toro Albalá. The carefully selected Pedro Ximénez grapes were hand-harvested and then left to dehydrate under the sun on straw mats for about seven days. The grapes were then pressed and, when the perfect balance between sugar, alcohol and acidity was reached in tank, the fermenting must was stunned with Aguardiente (clear local brandy), to stop the fermentation. The fortified wine was decanted into stainless steel and large cone-shaped amphorae known locally as tinajas. Due to the richness of the wine it must be naturally settled to avoid filtering, and so it's bottled straight from these holding vessels.

As these early release wines are neither barrel-aged nor blended, they are wonderfully pure, grapey examples of Pedro that capture all the delicious raisin and honey hedonism and the racy acidity of the variety before the rancio sets in. The amber nectar glows with concentrated fig, honey and muscatel raisin notes, and finishes warm, lingering and sweet. Despite this natural sugar level, it remains remarkably bright and fresh.

Pedro Ximénez’ affinity with chocolate-based desserts is well known. Perhaps less well-known is how well the wines pair with salty blue cheeses. This is particularly the case with Toro Albalá’s younger vintage wines. This can also match well with fig-based desserts and sweet pastries. It can be kept opened in the fridge forever by the way, which makes it perfect for pouring by the glass or keeping. The Don PX has also become popular as a cocktail mixer due to its depth of flavour and superb price point.

Toro Albalá Don PX 2020 (375ml)
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Toro Albalá Don PX 2002 (375ml)
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Toro Albalá Don PX 2002 (375ml)

Toro Albalá reserve select lots of their best vintage wines for later release. These rich and complex Pedro Ximénez wines are destined for very long aging in oak barrels. After filling and sealing, these barrels are left for decades in their single-vintage state. It's during this slow maturation that the wines undertake their delicious, savoury, rancio transformation (through controlled exposure to oxygen) which brings a kind of nutty, iodine character that infinitely complexes the sweet, fruit cakey wine but also gives it added freshness. Naturally, as the wines concentrate in flavour and texture, the colour darkens and the mouth-feel thickens. Vintages are selected for release after a minimum of 20 years in barrel and only when they have attained these classic hallmarks of aged PX.

“I tasted the 2002 Don PX, which has 17% alcohol and 399 grams of sugar and seems denser and more concentrated than the 1999 I tasted next to it. They are all different degrees or declinations of similar aromas and flavors, such as dates, raisins, coffee and espresso coffee. This comes through as balanced and tasty, not too sweet.”
93+ points, Luis Gutiérrez. The Wine Advocate
Toro Albalá Don PX 2002 (375ml)
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“Above all, [Antonio] Sánchez’s philosophy is to showcase the appellation of Montilla-Moriles. He achieves this not only through the sweet Pedro Ximénez wines for which the region is famous, but through other traditionally-styled wines of notable class and character.” Peter Liem and Jesús Barquín, Sherry, Manzanilla and Montilla

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