1925 Seppeltsfield 100 Year Old Para Vintage Tawny (100ml)

Drawn from a single vintage and matured in oak for 100 years before release, Seppeltsfield’s 1925 Para Vintage Tawny is part of an unbroken lineage unmatched in the world of fortified wine. Bottled direct from barrel at its centenary, it offers a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to experience a century of barrel age in its purest form.

Other Reviews....
In 1925, New York overtook London to become the largest city in the world, Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler's influence was rising, F. Scott Fitzgerald released The Great Gatsby, the Jazz Age was in full swing, and this was tucked away in barrel. That never ceases to blow my mind. It's a singularity of aroma and flavour. Dried fruits in an aqueous solution, candied nuts, mahogany, molasses, marzipan, fancy cigar lounge, espresso liqueur, candied figs and prunes, wood spice and citrus rind. It's in constant movement; light filters in and out, highlighting certain characters, casting shadow on others, in an ever-moving state of change. It's kinetic and endlessly complex and there ain't nothing else like it in the world. It really is a national treasure. Drink 2025-2055.
100 points
Dave Brookes - James Halliday's Wine Companion

Only one puncheon of this wine was made in 1925, as with subsequent vintages, with the intention of releasing the wine after 100 years. It has gone almost motor-oil black with an intensely complex nose, showing layers of baking spices, dried fruit, chocolate, citrus peel and oil. The palate is so complex and thick, with surprisingly high and fresh acidity that comes from concentration in the barrel, giving toasted nuts, baking spices, espresso, cocoa and burnt butter. This is a truly rare and iconic wine with a great deal of complexity and poise. Exceptional. Drink or hold.
99 points
James Suckling

The 1925 Centennial Collection Para Port Vintage Tawny leads with dark chocolate and salted dates, sweet dark oak, resin, licorice and campfire. This is evocative and brings to mind embers that float across the field of vision of the wine. In the mouth, it is oily, smoky, rich and thick, with leather, autumn leaves, mahogany and even petrichor, a character I have not noted before. This is as intense and as black as I have ever seen it, and it moves even to black olive tapenade, roasted meat crust and clove, aniseed and arnica. It has length that feels never-ending, propelled either by sugar or age or the very shadows of time itself. I tasted from bottle number 062 (this bottle was later shared among wine lovers and friends and, in fact, was also shared in Burgundy with friends earlier in the year). 23.1% alcohol, sealed in 100-milliliter bottles of perfume glass.
98 points
Erin Larkin - Robert Parker's Wine Advocate

Deep colour. Intense lifted ground coffee, praline, panforte aromas with smoky, liquorice, aniseed, cloves notes. Generously concentrated, dense and richly flavoured with fresh espresso, dark chocolate, orange rind, sandalwood cloves notes, fine supple textures, superb mid-palate volume/ viscosity and a persistent pure aniseed cut. Finishes smoky and long with apricot, panforte notes. A wonderful expression of Australian wine history and ambition. A living curio to share.
100 points
Andrew Caillard MW

It’s the physicality of the wine you notice first. It’s as dark as sump oil at its core, easing out to a rich olive green at its rims. And then you attempt to swirl it. There are continents that move more rapidly than these old tawnies flow from the glass. They grip the surface of a glass like a potter’s glaze and no wine on Earth has more of its production sucked off an index finger than one of these. Get your nose near the glass and you topple through time. Walnuts soaked in brandy, star anise and cloves, cassia bark and panforte, coffee grounds and dried mandarin peel. The lingering scent of waxy oilskin. It doesn’t so much hit the palate as detonate upon it, pushing complex flavour to untouched corners and staying around longer than an adult child saving for a house deposit. One of the wine world’s greatest experiences.
Points - All of them!
Nick Ryan