Wine description
| Aroma: |
Notes of royal jelly, bay leaf and roasted coffee as well as almonds, honey and caramel. |
| Colour: |
Amber |
| Palate: |
It is soft and gentle on the palate, with bittersweet orange flavours and a slight sweetness. Very nice finish. |
| Overall result: |
An exceptional wine that becomes increasingly nutty with time. A wine with good ageing potential and development potential. |
| Match with: |
...desserts with honey and almonds. |
| Alcohol: |
14 vol.% |
| Quantity: |
0,375l |
Terroir
| Region: |
D.O. Valencia |
| Vintage: |
NV |
| Vines: |
Moscatel Romana |
| Soil: |
Clay-lime soils |
| Hight: |
approx. 100 m above sea level |
| Clima: |
Mediterranes-kontinentales Klima mit kalten Nächten, bedingt durch die Höhe und heißen Sommertage, die durch eine Brise vom Meer gemildert werden. |
| Harvest: |
Manually |
Vinification
| Manufacturing: |
The wine is stored in 225-litre barrels made from different types of oak and continues to ferment slowly until the end of fermentation. |
| Aging: |
The wine is matured using the solera method. It is therefore not possible to speak of a vintage wine. Every year, 150 litres are taken from the bottom of the 3 rows of barrels and the top row is topped up with 150 litres of new wine. This process guarantees a largely consistent quality. |
Awards
| Robert Parker: |
95/100 |
| Peñin: |
96/100 |
Criticism
Luis Gutierréz, Robert Parker's critic, writes:
"I tasted the NV Casta Diva Cosecha Real 2002, which is not actually a vintage wine, even though it says so on the label. They bottle about 50 litres every year and replace it with the wine from the previous vintage in a so-called solera, which is why it is not a vintage wine for me. It's an exceptional wine that gets nuttier and nuttier as the average age of the wine increases, evolving and oxidising slowly in the barrel. It is more nuanced, deeper and more complex than the younger wines and has more subtle flavours with a certain biscuity character and notes of royal jelly, bay leaf and roasted coffee. It is soft and smooth on the palate, with bittersweet orange flavours and a slight sweetness. Only 254 half bottles were bottled in 2017 and the lot number on the back label is 5/2002, which is probably the fifth bottling of this solera, which began with a wine from 2002.
Gutiérrez de la Vega is possibly the best sweet wine producer in Spain. They are based in Jávea, in the heart of Alicante, but they gave up the designation of origin after there were disagreements about the style of Fondillón wines. As a result, they are not allowed to use the word Fondillón or even Alicante on their labels.
I tasted different types of Moscatel, dry and sweet; I also tasted some red wines, including sweet red wines in the style of Fondillón. There are very small bottlings of the different Soleras from 2004, 1987, 1985, 1979 and 1978, of which my favourite this time was the 1987. It showed more finesse, less colour and was aged in larger barrels in the style of previous years.".
