Richly sweet and decadent, if you haven’t got to know Pedro Ximinez in its greatest form like this, then do yourself a favour. Flavours of dried dates and fig, honey, toffee and walnut, it’s like a dessert all on its own. Pedro Ximinez (him-air-neth) or PX, is the grape variety, and post harvest it’s dried out on racks in the sun, further concentrating sugars and flavours. Once fermented it’s fortified with grape spirit and aged in a solera system. This is a system of continuous blending over years, where the young wine is added at one end, and the old wine is taken out for bottling at the other. In this case, the solera system was started in 1927.

Bodegas Alvear is a really bloody old, family-owned sherry producer. They’re based in Montilla-Moriles in Andalusia, Spain’s most southern and traditional wine regions. This particular part of the region specialises in sherry and wine made from Pedro Ximénez. The continental climate creates an environment especially well suited to making rich and unctuous sweet and fortified styles.