Lustau VORS Palo Cortado

Bodegas Lustau, founded in Jerez in 1896, works across the three towns of the Sherry Triangle and draws Palomino for this wine from white albariza clay soils ideal for the grape. Palo Cortado is one of the rarest Sherry styles, a wine that begins life ageing biologically under flor, then loses its veil and finishes its long maturation oxidatively. It keeps the fine, dry aroma of a flor wine but gains the body and depth of an oxidative one. The VORS designation marks an average age of at least thirty years in the criaderas and soleras, during which slow oxidation in seasoned butts concentrates the wine, browns the colour and builds layers of nut, dried fruit and spiced wood, while fortification to around 21 per cent gives the alcohol to carry that age. The colour is deep amber, the nose penetrating and dry with pecan, spiced oak and orange peel, the palate slightly bitter, complex and very long. Serve at cool room temperature, around 13 to 15 degrees, in a small glass. It suits aged hard cheese, cured meats, rich fish and mushroom dishes.