Glowing amber and gold (not very different from the glass of Darjeeling First Flush tea I have on my desk right now!) – surprisingly light in colour for such an old wine. Every time I lift the glass to my nose, it changes. One moment, the aroma of an old sawmill, dust motes floating silently in the first shafts of rose-gold dawn light; the next, a drift of cut cigar, toasted coconut; then dried apricot, the ashy mould of cave-aged alpine-cheese rind, church-pew polish. It turns sylvan and silver and spear-like on the tongue. Piercing right through the gauze of time and sepia-soft aromatics, the palate is whip-sharp, so taut and tingling with life that i felt the shock of it up my spine. So fine, so pure, so fiercely rapt with intention. To call this stunning would be an understatement of all time. I want to taste this in a cathedral, on my knees. The whisper of Shelly, breathing 'Music, when soft voices die, Vibrates in the memory—'. Quite frankly, at £515 for a magnum, this wine was practically given away.

The NV Palo Cortado S. Roberto is a one-off wine that comes from a unique barrel. This single-barrel wine is thought to be very old, because the wine has been untouched since the 1980s, so the wine has to be 80 to 90 years old (perhaps more). But it's not a dynamic solera. Although the barrel was untouched, the oak must be covered by tartrates and the wine evolved slowly, with little evaporation and concentration. In fact, for such an old wine, it's unusual that the alcohol is a "moderate" 20.5%. So, the wine, which was always classified as Palo Cortado, has incredible finesse and elegance, combined with concentration and power. It's a textbook, balanced and clean, fine and elegant, extremely old Palo Cortado. This is as good as Palo Cortado gets. It doesn't have the concentration and depth of the Reliquia, but this is anecdotal and impossible to repeat and the Reliquia can be bottled in very small quantities every year, so it's sustainable and this is not. Splitting hairs here, so I'll be generous with the score. Unique and elegant. 1,100 half bottles produced.