Versos 1891 Amontillado – a sherry on top
In Edgar Allan Poe’s classic short story The Cask of Amontillado, a rare vintage of amontillado – a sherry wine darker than fino but lighter than oloroso – serves as the plot device leading up to a characteristic Poe macabre ending. There are no dark conclusions to a bottle of Versos 1891 Amontillado, however. Instead, it is a sweet finish that is pungent, rich and fresh.
Only 100 bottles of Versos 1891 Amontillado exist. And even if Spanish producer Barbadillo wanted to make more, it couldn’t. Because this sherry is drawn from a cask gifted to one Manuel Barbadillo from his father as a christening present…. in 1891. That is not a typo. Since then, generations of the Barbadillo family in Sanlúcar de Barrameda have tended the cask, deciding to bottle its nectar this year. With a price to match its rarity: £8,000 (RM45,300) for each handcrafted, individually numbered crystal decanter etched with gold leaf.
Often overlooked for its sexier wine cousins, sherry is still largely unappreciated in Asia but has been gaining favour as the millennial oenophile’s glass of choice. Barbadillo’s foray into the luxury segment, one of the firsts for sherry, has raised eyebrows. But, as the say, the proof in the pudding, and a single sip of Versos 1891 is enough to convince that this is the sherry bomb.
