Alvear Pedro Ximénez Sacristía

At the moment, this is the only winery in the world to have made a vertical range of Pedro Ximénez vintages. Since 1998 Bodegas Alvear has been dedicated to this task. A year later came Alvear Pedro Ximénez Sacristía, a very complex sweet wine.

An undisputed synonym of quality, Alvear Pedro Ximénez Sacristía is made by these hundred-year-old wineries in Cordoba from the best vines that grow in the mountain range of the D.O. Montilla-Moriles, in the province of Cordoba (in the north-central part of Andalusia). In these albariza plots, with very chalky and permeable soils, little organic matter and not very productive, the berries ripen slowly, finding a magnificent balance between sweetness and acidity. However, in this area, where summer temperatures can reach 46ºC, the unquestionable protagonist is the sun and the heat, creating raisined grapes with low water content and high sugar (which means more food for the yeasts to convert into alcohol). However, this drying process that is so characteristic of the area and results in musts with a minimum concentration of 450 g/l of sugar, allows winemakers to produce tremendously sweet wines like Alvear Pedro Ximénez Sacristía.

At Bodegas Alvear, this concentration of sugar, a method known as raisining, is achieved using the “asoleo” method. This involves leaving the grapes in the sun on mats made from esparto grass for several days. After this, the raisins are directly pressed, applying a very high pressure to achieve the highest possible yield. This juice, which is dense and dark, is racked into 500 litre American oak casks in La Sacristía, the bodega located in the centre of the village of Montilla. This is where Alvear keeps its oldest wines and where Alvear Pedro Ximénez Sacristía will rest, undisturbed by the passage of time.