Yo Berserkz,
Had my first ever Sherry wine last night after finding an appropriate occasion, a dinner with friends where the hostess asked me to provide a Chilean asado. I complied by grilling a rosemary sprig and BBQ rub seasoned boneless leg of lamb to go along with some onion and tomato and marinated cauliflower salads.
For dessert, I brought a Chilean late harvest Gewurztraminer which was actually really quite good anda Lustau Capataz sherry from their Reserva line. It’s a blend of their Solera aged Oloroso and PX put together.
The Sherry was incredibly smooth, with nice rounded flavors of hazelnuts, almonds, cream, and a touch of toffee. The closest references I would have are either coffee with hazelnut flavored whitener or a Werther’s Original caramel hard candy. There was some dried raisin fruit flavor but not much to my surprise. Alcohol is perfectly integrated. The finish goes on forever. An evening finishing wine for sure. Speaking as a foodie, some definite Spanish flavors in here. I know that’s kinda vague and an odd note, but I can literally taste the Spanish in this wine.
Compared to a Vintage Port, especially, this seemed to be trading off acidity and fruit for smoothness. By contrast, I find Vintage Port to have more fruit and dried flowers flavors and an aged Tawny Port to have more dried fruit, mocha, and caramel flavors.
This was very much a beginner’s sherry, but it was more than enough to hook me. I also have some Lustau East India Solera which is the same wine as their Capataz but which is then treated within its own Solera system and aged and blended itself instead as if it were a single wine.
I do have some Noe Viejo 30 year old PX waiting for me and I suspect a similar experience to when I had Todd Estroff’s 1977 Graham’s Vintage Port awaits me upon trying that one. Nevertheless, this was quite a pleasant experience.
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