TN: Lustau Solera Reserva Moscatel Emilin Sherry

WINE TALK
1

Berserkers,

Sherry doesn’t get enough love or respect and Moscatel sherry gets the least respect of all which is a crying shame based upon this luscious sherry. It’s made from dried Moscatel grapes and the wine aged in a solera system for an average of 10 years.

This sherry pours out thick into the glass and as you can see by the photo has a dark mahogany black color. On the nose, it has typical floral aromas of muscat but also some toffee and roasted coffee bean aromas as well as a slight touch of heat.

In the mouth, full bodied as one would expect from a wine fortified to 17% but the palate is where it completely outshines every other fortified muscat I’ve ever had. Rich complex flavors of honey, caramel, toffee, roasted coffee beans, black licorice and sweet muscat grapes with a surprising amount of balancing acidity and a salinity that hits your palate the moment the wine hits your tongue and lasts all throughout the very long finish. The heat on the nose is not evident on the palate as this is a very smooth sherry that goes down quite easily.

Far, far better than any other fortified muscats I have had from Australia, Spain and the Ukraine to date. Only the 20 year old Chambers Grand Muscat the LCBO has available has any chance of beating this. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. [cheers.gif]
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2

Yup, Tran…much as you described, but much more eloquently than I. This wine’s a gem.
Thanks for the head’s up on it.
Tom

3

Thanks, Tom. To be fair, I should mention now that I remember that the 20 Year Old JMF Alambré Moscatel de Setubal from Portugal was just as good and just as rare to find but it had the advantage of being aged twice as long.

4

Love, love, love that Emilin. But isn’t that Setubal about 3X the price of the Lustau as well? I

5

Tran, that’s one of many Moscatel sherries. While you’re expanding your horizons, there are some very nice Moscatel fortified wines made in the south of France, which makes sense because that region was part of the Spanish kingdom for a while. One of the good things about that wine, unlike say, a PX, is that it’s not as cloying. An even better thing is that it can keep for many months while opened. I got a huge order once because I was showing a bottle in November that I’d opened in early March. It’s good to keep a bottle around!