Port and PX

Ray Queally · Post by **Ray Queally** » Thu Jun 28, 2007 12:12 pm

Just a thought,
How many of you Port lovers also like Pedro Ximinez ?

I often prevaricate over which to have at the end of a meal or for a comforting glass at the end of the day.
Often the ability of the PX to maintain its freshness once opened means it wins out.

So do you love or hate PX ?

Paul Eddy · Post by **Paul Eddy** » Thu Jun 28, 2007 12:34 pm

Hi Ray, Personally I would take the port, I do like PX but
it is just a tad too sweet to have that often. What I do like
is a good Oloroso and the choice between a port and say
a Gonzalez Byass Matusalem is not an easy one for me.

Paul.

Post by **Roy Hersh** » Thu Jun 28, 2007 12:50 pm

I like PX very much. I also have a hard time getting past one glass at a sitting as it is just too cloying. Rarely do they have a lot of acidity to handle the level of RS they carry. Although I drink a hanful of bottles of this per year, my real issue with PX is although delicious, I find the complexity lacking even in the better versions I have had.

I really like Amontillado and Oloroso too.

nicos neocleous · Post by **nicos neocleous** » Thu Jun 28, 2007 12:54 pm

Ray,
I love PX and Port as well. My first love was Port, but I have grown to appreciate the better PX's out there.

Roy,
Hopefully, we try a bottle or two of the finest PX together one day. :)

Ray Queally · Post by **Ray Queally** » Thu Jun 28, 2007 3:18 pm

Roy,
I take your point about the cloying nature of PX but there is certainly complexity in some of them.
I wasn't seeking to get people to come down on one side or the other but merely to gauge if they went hand in hand.
It's even stevens at the moment as I agree with Nicos.

Raj Patil · Post by **Raj Patil** » Thu Jun 28, 2007 3:36 pm

sorry about my ignorance, but what exactly is PX? I've seen it at the store but didn't think it was a variant of port

Steve Saxon · Post by **Steve Saxon** » Thu Jun 28, 2007 4:26 pm

I'm a big fan of the 27 PX however like Roy I can't drink a lot of it.

Scott Anaya · Post by **Scott Anaya** » Thu Jun 28, 2007 6:43 pm

I like PX for sure. I always buy it in the half bottles because like others have mentioned, I can't knock down a bottle of this stuff as a glass or two suffices. I recently had the '27 and regularly drink the 71 since it is my birth year.

I recently posted that a restuarant here in Anchorage serves a more recent vintage of PX along side a dish of peanut butter ice cream as their version of peanut butter and jelly. It is a really good pairing that everyone at the table enjoyed!

Todd Pettinger · Post by **Todd Pettinger** » Thu Jun 28, 2007 8:35 pm

Raj Patil wrote:sorry about my ignorance, but what exactly is PX? I've seen it at the store but didn't think it was a variant of port

I second this

Not sure what the PX is either. :?

Todd

Post by **Andy Velebil** » Fri Jun 29, 2007 12:17 am

I also like PX, but like others, i have a hard time having more than 1-2 glasses at a time.

Ray Queally · Post by **Ray Queally** » Fri Jun 29, 2007 1:10 am

Todd/ Raj,
PX stands for Pedro Ximinex a grape used in the production of sherry.
The grapes undergo a period of sun-drying and are then aged and fortified.
PX is a type of Sherry, you are probably familiar with Fino and Olorosso.
This is a very sweet wine and as posters have pointed out hard to drink in large quantities. However once opened it lasts for a year. Also it frequently comes in small bottles. It's like a liquid Christmas cake.

Hope this paints a picture.

João Rico · Post by **João Rico** » Fri Jun 29, 2007 7:30 am

I really like PX but they are so sweet that sometimes i just get tired of drinking. On the other hand i dislike those extra dry sherry's called manzanilla, i think.

João Rico

Jason Brandt Lewis · Post by **Jason Brandt Lewis** » Fri Jun 29, 2007 7:49 am

Hmmmm . . . .

As with many of the previos posts in this thread, I like Pedro Ximenez (PX), but I do not love it. I, too, find it too sweet to enjoy more than half a glass. It IS tiring to drink, as João said. And I agree with Roy -- I prefer Olorosos and Amontillados to PX. Unlike João, however, I ealso enjoy fresh Finos and Manzanillas.

(OTOH, bone-dry Sercial has been difficult for me to enjoy.)

Raj Patil · Post by **Raj Patil** » Fri Jun 29, 2007 9:32 am

I thought I'd never see the day that a Porto drinker would say that another wine is TOO sweet.

Moses Botbol · Post by **Moses Botbol** » Fri Jun 29, 2007 11:16 am

Roy Hersh wrote:I like PX very much. I also have a hard time getting past one glass at a sitting as it is just too cloying. Rarely do they have a lot of acidity to handle the level of RS they carry. Although I drink a hanful of bottles of this per year, my real issue with PX is although delicious, I find the complexity lacking even in the better versions I have had.

I really like Amontillado and Oloroso too.

I have to agree with Roy 100% on this one. Nothing to add...

Ole Udsen · Post by **Ole Udsen** » Thu Jul 05, 2007 4:20 am

For me the choice comes down to matching with food. Port is lovely with blue cheese, desserts containing nuts, etc. However, if the desserts get overly sweet and/or cold (ice cream is a prime example, but chocolate cake is also a killer), Port will lose out, and this is exactly where the PX comes into play. Because of the elevated sweetness and low acidity, PX is excellent with the very sweet stuff. In the Jerez area, they actually use PX as a sauce/syrup poured onto vanilla ice cream. Try it, it is delicious. You may not want to use your '27's or '71's for that, but I use Gonzales Byass' Noe' to great effect.

Shawn Denkler · Post by **Shawn Denkler** » Thu Jul 05, 2007 10:26 am

I agree with most of you - I enjoy Pedro Ximinez, but it is too sweet to drink very much because of the low acidity. Far more often I will drink other styles of sherry, mostly Amontillado and Oloroso.

When I want to drink a sweet wine I will go for a Malmsey or a German BA or TBA. All these styles have the acid I crave with the elevated sugar levels.

For me the Australian liqueur style Tokay and Muscats are too sweet for me just like Pedro Ximinez. I drink these styles very rarely. I do not buy them, and have them only at a friend's house.

Post by **Roy Hersh** » Thu Jul 05, 2007 11:44 am

Although PX is used to make the sweetest style of Sherry, it also is used in the less well known category of wines that come out of MALAGA too. Some of the greatest examples of PX that I have enjoyed were ancient bottles of Malaga, which is a dessert wine from the Andalucia area of Spain.

As a quick and off topic aside (my appologies):

Anyone remember the crazy film, "Le chien Andalou" made by Luis Bunuel with some wild scenes developed by Salvador Dali. Amazing stuff and one that always comes to mind, when I drink Malaga.

Ole Udsen · Post by **Ole Udsen** » Thu Jul 05, 2007 7:10 pm

Dear Roy,

Good point. They also do really good PX near Montilla. By the way, the Montilla style of dry, oxidized white wines is what has named the Amontillado style of Sherry. I had a fantastic dish in the wonderful town of Cordoba once (if you have not been there, you are missing out on one of the most beautiful places in the world). It was called "perdiz encebollado" and basically consisted of an entire partridge cooked with lots of onions in Montilla wine. This was back in 1987, but I can still taste it.

Todd Pettinger · Post by **Todd Pettinger** » Thu Jul 05, 2007 7:22 pm

Ray Queally wrote:Todd/ Raj,
PX stands for Pedro Ximinex a grape used in the production of sherry.
The grapes undergo a period of sun-drying and are then aged and fortified.
PX is a type of Sherry, you are probably familiar with Fino and Olorosso.
This is a very sweet wine and as posters have pointed out hard to drink in large quantities. However once opened it lasts for a year. Also it frequently comes in small bottles. It's like a liquid Christmas cake.

Hope this paints a picture.

Thanks for the explanation Ray.

Went you refer to the sun-drying period, I assume they don't let the grapes get so dehydrated that they lose all their juice, like raisins? I don't think it takes long in hot sun for grapes t become raisin-ized... how long (approx) would they be looking at dying the grapes for?

(this sounds like something I have to put on my list to find and try. (although I hope its not exactly like Christmas Cake as I'm not a huge fan

)

Todd