This is a fascinating range of jerez imported and I BEG you to go to alexander-jules.com and read the full specs. I’m not exactly a stranger to sherry, but this shit gets ridiculously technical in relation to provenance. Fascinating stuff–but geeky. We all know what solera is, but it gets further divided into scales and clases and even the location of the barrels selected–top, bottom, close to floor, front, back, EVERYTHING MATTERS–I just spent an hour of my life reading every technical detail of every sherry he has bottled and am halfway educated and astounded and halfway feeling FAR DUMBER from the layers and layers of crazy variables that go into these selections.

I will attempt a Clif-Notes discussion of this wine, with many gaps. This particular 3/10 Amontillado is from a solera *only* 18 years of age. All of his sherry selections are labeled with some version of a fraction, in this case, it was a 3-barrel selection from a group of 2, 5-barrel clases. Some of them are 9/64, 1/42 and on and on–with several of the selections from soleras well over a century old. Apparently, someone has to drive all over Spain searching these gems out, which is pretty much the job I want now.

Taut almond and creamy newsprint, raw beef and mineral salt-lick in the nose. Bright, light and refreshing in the mouth, bruised orange rind and the salty glamour of a margarita–without the ice and lime. Of course the nuttiness invades the alcohol, creating spritely images of intensity against a feathery wall–shadow puppets brilliantly manipulated against oozing red brick covered in nitre, figures in heavy wool moving among seasoned grey wood and undisturbed dust. A scream in silence.

ALEXANDER JULES ‘3/10’ Amontillado (bottled 2016) Sherry 18.5

alexander-jules.com