La Bota de Palo Cortado 48 (Equipo Navazos)

Palo Cortado #48 is taken from one barrel in the old 30-GF solera

Like its sister wines (La Bota n° 41, 47, 49 and 51), La Bota de Palo Cortado 48 from Equipo Navazos is a very old wine taken from the defunct bodegas Gaspar Florido, in this case a Bota Punta from the 30-GF solera (the wine was called 30-GF as a very modest estimate of the average age).

A Bota Punta is usually not topped up from younger criaderas, but from the other barrels in the same row. This means the wine inside will be older than the rest (think of it as a kind of one-barrel super-solera). All of these butts contained very old wines from the They were simply labelled Jerez viejisimo or ‘very very old sherry’. Palo Cortado #48 is between 50 and 80 years of age.

La Bota de Palo Cortado n°48 ‘Bota Punta’ (21,5%, Equipo Navazos 2013)

Nose: pretty much the same aromas we found in La Bota de Palo Cortado 47, but with a bit more emphasis on rounder notes. Polished furniture and cigar boxes. Old leather. Caramelized figs, raspberry syrup. A little turpentine. Light vegetal notes as well. More aromatic and fragrant than n°47, which has a darker and slightly more buttery profile. Both very complex wines, but this one has a more attractive nose.

Mouth: less acidity and sharp salinity than n°47, although it’s still not an easy wine. Walnuts and oak, more obvious oak than in 47. Lots of ashy notes. Ponzu sauce and a kind of waxy / lemony hint. Seville oranges. After a while the bitterness does return, but in an espresso kind of way. Burnt cake. Fades on sweet and sour notes (strawberry lemonade), more salty notes and toasted oak.

Availability: originally around € 75 for a 37,5cl bottle. Still available but you may need to pay a little extra now. Check TWE for instance.

Thank you for the sample exchange, A.K.

Summary: Quite a hard-hitting wine, which is why some people will love it and others may find it too extreme. It's a must-try anyway and for me the better option when hesitating between 47 and 48.

4.5

Excellent

Tags: 21.5%, 30-GF, Equipo Navazos, gaspar florido, La Bota, la bota de palo cortado, Palo Cortado

About the Author

Ruben is a Certified Sherry Educator who fell in love with sherry some 25 years ago, but switched to a higher gear in 2013 and started writing about it. Lived in Madrid for a couple of years, now back in Belgium. I also run a whisky blog over at www.whiskynotes.be