Solera Oloroso 1905 75cl

The NV 1905 Oloroso Solera Fundacional Lot B 2016 is a recent bottling (February 2016) that followed those 1,000 bottles originally filled in 2002. So the old average age of the wine is kept, because so little of it is bottled. We know how extremely old Oloroso can be almost painful, but this feels quite balanced. Obviously old, the greenish border gives it away; it's believed to be around 80 years of average age, and has an expressive nose of noble woods, roasted hazelnuts, incense and balsam, rusty nails, even some savory notes (chicken broth?) and some Sherry brandy. Reading the technical data I found out this has 11.5 grams of residual sugar, I guess from pure concentration and evaporation because of its old age, as there are no signs that it had ever been blended with some sweet wine. In any case, the palate is balanced and you do not feel any sweetness at all, but maybe that little sugar is the secret why it feels gentle rather than harsh. This Lot B is composed of 1,000 numbered bottles.  I finally visited Pérez Barquero and some of their vineyards in Moriles Alto and the Sierra de Montilla mountains, where they own some 100 hectares of vineyards. We had an (almost running) tour of some of their vineyards, bodegas and soleras; in the end I decided their old wines deserved more time and attention, so I tasted them at home over the course of various days.  My visit was very pertinent and just in time, as they are releasing their limited production Solera Fundacional some ten years after the first bottling, and also a new bottling of four old wines. This traditional house produces superb wines that usually represent very good value, too, and tend to fly under the radar, perhaps because of their old style image of bottles and labels. The older wines seem even better balanced and more elegant than the original release (which is differentiated by just a B on the left bottom corner of the labels, as the original release was named A). Pérez Barquero is one of the greatest and most consistent wineries in the whole of Andalucía and they deserve a much higher recognition for their great wines.