Robert Parker's The Wine Advocate awards Barbadillo Reliquia Palo Cortado 100 points!
Robert Parker's The Wine Advocate awards Reliquia Palo Cortado a perfect score of 100 points. In addition to the Palo Cortado, the Reliquia Amontillado garnered 98 points, Reliquia Oloroso 95 points and Reliquia Pedro Ximenez 93 points. The full reviews are below.
NV Reliquia Palo Cortado -
100 POINTS
Wine Advocate #208 - August 2013
Luis Guiterrez
Drink: 2013 - 2024
$500
The NV Reliquia Palo Cortado, as the rest of the reliquias, is so old and off all scales that they don’t bother with the official age qualifications. It has a dark amber color with green reflections, an extremely complex nose, ever-changing, you could be smelling it for hours (they call it a meditation wine?), noble woods, bitter orange, crushed shells and hazelnuts, The very concentrated palate is extremely dry, slightly bitter and salty. In fact, it’s so saline it makes you salivate. Not as extreme as other reliquias, it’s probably the most drinkable of them all, and represents the absolute epitome of Palo Cortado. Drink 2013-2024.
NV Reliquia Amontillado -
98 POINTS
Wine Advocate #208 - August 2013
Luis Guiterrez
Drink: 2013 - 2025
$500
The NV Reliquia Amontillado is an extremely old wine, concentrated from its sheer old age. It wears a mahogany robe with a green rim. The nose is pungent, marine, with noble woods, hazelnuts and a touch of volatility. The palate is quite brutal, verging on the edge of being too much, but without crossing the line. It’s an extreme meditation wine, presented in a glass decanter, and sold in extremely limited quantities. A bottle would last for months (or years), as it should be sipped in very small quantities instead of a Brandy, Cognac or Armagnac. Exceptional. Drink 2013-2025.
NV Reliquia Oloroso -
95 POINTS
Wine Advocate #208 - August 2013
Luis Guiterrez
Drink: 2013 - 2030
$500
The NV Reliquia Oloroso jumps out of the glass, with a most peculiar combination of perfumed notes of dried roses, iodine, cigar-ash, cold bonfire and extra-vecchio aceto balsamico. The nose keeps changing, giving you new sensations every time you go back to it. The palate is extremely powerful, even aggressive. It has width and length, ending saline, but it is difficult to drink, almost painful. They used to call these wines ‘handkerchief wines’ as gentlemen in the old times used to wear a drop of them in their handkerchiefs for the aroma. A very complex, ultra-concentrated, intense, radical very old Oloroso. One of a kind, a true relic, this is an extreme wine if there is one. Drink carefully and in very small doses between 2013-2030.
NV Reliquia Pedro Ximenez -
93 POINTS
Wine Advocate #208 - August 2013
Luis Guiterrez
Drink: 2013 - 2030
$500
The NV Reliquia Pedro Ximenez is extremely old, and can be traced back to the creation of a solera in 1921 in the Bodega del Toro in the calle Sevilla in Sanlucar de Barrameda that originated from an already old PX at the end of the 19th century. Dark, opaque mahogany color. The nose is dominated by noble woods, balsamic and medicinal notes intermixed with dates and figs, and a layer of pungent spices like nutmeg and cloves. The palate reveals a full-throttle wine, which many would find excessive (well, it IS excessive), ample, it fills your mouth with very strong, bitter flavors and an intense finish. Drink 2013-2030.