Emilio Lustau East India Solera 500mL

90 POINTS

Decanter World Wine Awards 2017 - Silver

Raisin, figs, heaps of chocolate, coffee, christmas cake, molasses, firewood, roasted walnuts come through to a long nutty and raisined finish.

Robert Parker - Wine Advocate

The dark amber-hued non-vintage East India Solera is essentially an old Oloroso blended with an old Pedro Ximenez, which gives it a sweet character. It offers more mature notes of maple syrup, brown sugar, spice box, raisin and chocolate beer nuts, and its terrific balancing acidity cuts through the sweetness. This delicious effort is best drunk after the meal. Lustau made its reputation in the foreign markets with its extraordinary single cask Almacenistas which had been accumulated by the family over many years as their soleras are among the oldest in Sherry. The family also owns over 500 acres of vineyards. These are all remarkable efforts for their stunning value. While they are still under-the-radar for most American wine lovers, I encourage readers to give them a try as they are great introductory reference points for how profound sherry can be. I first wrote about the extraordinary sherries of Emilio Lustau many years ago, in the early days of The Wine Advocate.

Luis Gutierrez - Wine Advocate

The NV East India Solera is a Cream, a category I have not really covered in this article, which is a blend of 12-year-old Don Nuno Oloroso (80%) and San Emilio PX which is also about 12 years old, blended and aged together for a further three years in a special, slightly warmer part of the winery which replicates perhaps the character of the wines that traveled by boat to India or elsewhere. Mahogany colored with a green-amber edge, it has the nose of an old wine with notes of antique shop, wax, shoe polish, noble wood, and a touch of spices, dates and prunes, all of it very well integrated. The palate is spicy and sweet (it has 130 grams of sugar) again very integrated. At this price level it represents good value and should go well with cheeses. Drink 2013-2020. Emilio Lustau is one of the better internationally known names in the Sherry world, which is quite remarkable, as they have never been a very big operation. In fact they can be considered a small- to medium-sized bodega for Sherry; they were selling around 350,000 bottles per year. Furthermore, when more and more bodegas and important names have disappeared, been bought and sold, brands and soleras acquired by big drink corporations, Brandy or other businesses cannibalizing wine in some of the bigger companies, it’s refreshing to see a firm still betting firmly on Sherry and working so hard to improve their ranges and their international presence, trying new products (they have produced a small lot of unfiltered biologically aged wine from the three different towns, Jerez, El Puerto and Sanlucar) and experimenting in many different ways. Their range might be too wide (35 to 40 different wines), but that works for them, as they can diversify in different markets and have the correct wine for the price and quality required. They also pioneered the idea to bottle small lots from almacenistas (small bodegas who produce and age wine that they sell to other bodegas rather than offering bottled to consumers) showing the name of the almacenista and the village where the wine has aged. Emilio Lustau was created in 1896 by Jose Ruiz-Berdejo who was himself an almacenista in Jerez; he worked his vineyards and produced wines that he sold to the big exporting houses. In 1940 his son-in-law Emilio Lustau took over and enlarged the business, which in 1950 became an exporting firm. Through the 70’s and 80’s they continued combining tradition with new ways and ideas. In 1990 the company was bought by Luis Caballero, a businessman from El Puerto de Santa Maria in love with Sherry, whose stellar product was Ponche Caballero, the number one liqueur in Spain at the time. He enlarged the company, purchasing vineyards and in 2001 he acquired some bodegas from their neighbors, Harveys, in Jerez, like the impressive 14-meter high Los Arcos and Las Cruces. In 2008 they bought some famous brands and soleras that had belonged to Domecq and were true icons of Sherry wine in Spain, 4,000 botas in total, 2,600 of them of Fino La Ina, perhaps the better known Sherry brand locally together with Tio Pepe from Gonzalez-Byass. This will bring them additional volume, mainly in the local market, perhaps to become a half-million bottle per year winery. Walking around the bodegas with director Federico Sanchez-Pece, I bumped into some newish-looking barrels and showed surprise. “Oh! These are botas that belong to Jameson, we fill them with Oloroso and they stay here two or three years before they take them to Ireland to use them for the aging of their whisky.”

Decanter World Wine Awards 2016 - Bronze

Full, ripe and deep nose of dark toffee, coffee, savoury leather and raisin. Powerful and concentrated on the palate, with layers of mocha, tobacco and nuts.

Decanter World Wine Awards

Very deep, figgy nose. Black pepper, coffee and chocolate notes. Fresh and alive with mature, caramel-tinged prune fruit. Silver, DWWA 2011, Decanter World Wine Awards

Decanter World Wine Awards

Hints of raisin and nuts on the nose, rich and luscious on the deep, balanced palate. Bronze, DWWA 2010, Decanter World Wine Awards

Decanter World Wine Awards

Fudge and burnt caramel on the nose. Savoury, rather lovely flavour. Dark burnt sugar, orange peel and a roast meaty flavour. Bronze, DWWA 2009, Decanter World Wine Awards

Decanter World Wine Awards

Caramel, dried figs and raisins on nose. Savoury notes on the mid palate lead to rich honey notes to finish. Bronze, DWWA 2012, Decanter World Wine Awards