NV Gonzalez Byass NOE Pedro Ximenez Muy Viejo Jerez 30 Year Old Sherry -- at the end of a lovely dinner with some very good wines, and after a bottle of '97 Mann TPG Altenbourg Vendage Tardives that our host knew I liked, he brought me a small glass of a dark liquid that he innocently said he'd like to hear my opinion of. He told me later that my eyes widened just after I swallowed my first sip, exactly the experience he had had upon tasting it a couple of nights previously. This is THE MOST EXCITING NEW (for me) WINE I'VE HAD IN THE LAST COUPLE OF YEARS!!

This wine has a huge, immense, massive (go to your favorite thesaurus and add a few more synonyms for "big") nose of coffee and English toffee; thick, syrupy, slow-moving (very similar to a 50-year old Balsamic vinegar that we had tasted earlier this evening); flavors of rum-soaked raisins, caramel, dates, dark chocolate, spice cake, roasted walnuts, cinammon, along with a kind of lactic richness, like sniffing a bowl of fresh whipping cream; completely mouth-coating--doesn't just fill the palate, almost overwhelms it. This takes complete control of your mouth and doesn't let go for a full 60 seconds. Despite its viscosity and intensity, it has a contrasting and invigorating lightness on the palate, a dichotomy that I've only experienced before in great Rieslings; there's enough acidity for this giant to somehow stay balanced, and with that remarkable finish, this is a wine that everyone should try to experience.

I've had very good Pedro Ximenez Sherries before (Lustau), but this PX is as good as any tawny Port or fortified dessert wine I've ever had. It's a true benchmark wine for me, and a real eye-opener about the quality of great, sweet Sherries. I had to e-mail Gastronauta about it as soon as I got home, just to ask him whether or not he thought I was overreacting to a new or different sensory experience. He was delighted that someone had finally "gotten" PX Sherry.

I'm not really sure how to translate all of this into a numerical score, but in anyone's books, this is 96+. Maybe it should be higher, but my inexperience with great Sherry makes me wonder: is it approaching perfection for a wine of this sort? Can there be something better?

(And on the stereo during this entire performance: Yo La Tango, a cool new sound! )