Some weeks when I write my review I can't help but feel that I've drunk nothing remarkable nor really said anything special about it.  This week is different.

I've tried a diverse sampling of sherries - some sweet, some dry, or imbetween.  I too am surprised by the results.

1) Tio Pepe Extra Dry Palomino Fino Sherry (Spain) - I was very curious about this one.  In the bottle it looked like any ordinary white wine, which is actually unusual for sherry.  And I had read that dry sherries are really an acquired taste that not everyone likes so I wanted to see what I thought.  Oh my god, this was terrible.  I'd describe it as a very strong grassy flavor combined with a strong solvent (kerosene, some sort of turpentine, I don't know).  Nancy could stand it either.  In fact I had only about four sips and then the rest of my glass and the whole rest of the bottle got poured out.  What's most surprising is I think that really is the way it's supposed to taste (it wasn't just a bad bottle).  Someone somewhere probably thinks that wine is amazing.  Yeck.  So I give this a "1" out of 10, and not because it was badly made (the vendor is Gonazalez Byass and quite famous) but because I can never EVER see myself buying this wine again.

2) Apostoles Palo Cortado Muy Viejo Sherry (Spain) - This small (375ml) bottle came in it's own fancy cannister and as such I probably would have shied away from buying it (thinking it was too fancy, or just marketing).  But a clerk highly recommended it as scoring very high on the Parker scale and explained that it's a 30 year old sherry.  So with great anticipation I pulled the cork... and... I'm quite unimpressed.  On the plus side it has strong hints of coffee, and despite being dry ther's a decent amount of sugary raisin bouquet.  But, the taste, other than coffee-ish, was most comparable to the inexpensive marsala wine I reviewed earlier.  In a blind taste test of the two I'm not sure I'd tell them apart, and in fact I might pick the marsala as the better one (even though it's 1/3 the price and twice the size of bottle).  So yeah, I'm quite disappointed.  And there's something a little bitter about this wine that the marsala doesn't have.  So, this is still a quality wine and I'm going to score it as low average (5 out of 10).  I'm sure some sherry fans think I'm nuts but that's how I feel about it.

3) Lustau Vendimia Cream Sherry (Spain) - Finally, here's one I liked.  It's sweet but not too sweet, it still has that coffee hint like the Apostoles, and it clearly shows some aging.  Reportedly they only make small quantities of this and only on good years so I'm glad I found one to try (it was the only one the store had).  Good stuff.  I still prefer La Cilla over it which is why I'm scoring a 9 instead of a 10.

4) Royal Tokaji, Tokaji Asxu 5 Puttonyos, 2000 (Hungary) - OK I'd read about this, it's apparently one of the most famous sweet wines in the world.  And it's expensive - this 500ml bottle was $30.  But, it's worth it.  This is delicious nectar.  What you get is a concentrated white sweet wine, kind of like if you start with sauternes and then infused it with exotic sweet fruits like gooseberry, passionfruit, etc.  It has relatively low alcohol and drinks so smooth and easy that you have to force yourself to go slow and savor it.  So easy it would be to drink your glass like fruit juice.  Really nice.  This is the first wine I've tried from Hungary which I thought was remarkable, and yes, this wine scores a full 10.  I don't expect to buy it very often, but it is special, unique, and delicious.  (Sorry I squeezed a non-sherry wine into the reviews).