Yes, I know we usually associate sherry with aged aunts and fruit trifles - and yes, I realise we have been hearing about its revival as a fashionable drink for almost as long as it has been unfashionable. But lets just forget the preconceptions and the marketing voodoo and concentrate on the product itself. Sherry is an underrated world-class wine that at its best can deliver a range of tastes and exotic aromas as complex as single malts and vintage whites. It is remarkably good value (£5 for a five year old fino) and comes in a vast range of styles from the cheek pinching, bone-dry manzanilla, to the treacly nectar of Pedro Ximénez.
Judging sherry by the sweet ‘cream’ style served up at the English vicarage is akin to dismissing the world of French cheeses after a nibble of mild Brie. In order to really get to know the repertoire of sherry styles and understand it’s peculiar production methods you have to head to sherry’s golden triangle around Jerez de la Frontera in Andalusia.
The idea of my tour was to learn as much as possible about the world of sherry in just two days. With my guide, Juan Antonio Garcia we managed to visit eight bodegas(sherry warehouses), in three different cities and tasted up to five styles of sherry at each visit. Given the fact that most of the bodegas are only open in the mornings(up to 2.30p.m if you are lucky) and that many of our hosts wanted us to linger over a particular rare bottle we did well to finish the course. My mind is now marinated with sherry facts and my taste buds are still dancing from the fine flavours we encountered on our whistle-stop sherry safari.
The specialist tour company Cadiz Guida put together the bespoke sherry trip with Juan as my guide, translator and general Mr. Fixit. Although Juan doesn’t claim to be a wine expert he is serious about his sherries and enjoyed explaining why a Manzanilla from Sanlucar de Barrameda is superior to the standard finos of Jerez, why sherry is the best lubricant for the week long party of the Jerez horse fair and why thirty year old Pedro Ximenez poured over ice cream is a God given gift. As the dedicated driver he even managed to resist the temptation of the VORS (Vinum Optimum Rare Signatum - Very Old Rare Sherry) and best of all, after years of guiding in the province he knows everyone in the business so our bodega visits were informal drinks with his old chums than stiff regulated tours.
The golden triangle of sherry production is made up of the cities of Jerez, Sanlucar de Barrmeda to the west and El Puerto de Santa Maria to the south. Each area has its own microclimate that contributes to the character and style of their local sherry. So for example Sanlucar close to the cool Atlantic Ocean and high humidity of the Guadalquivir River produces a special fino (manzanilla) that has the fresh and salty tang of the sea.
Even within each city connoisseurs can distinguish subtleties in sherries according to the bodega’s height above sea level, aspect to the winds and proximity to the water. Then when you take into account the different styles of each bodega’s architecture, the origins of the grapes and the management of their barrels you can see why tasting a few glasses of sherry can easily turn into a long and enjoyable discussion about life, lore and geography
Sherry offers a different type of wine tourism as unlike most vineyards the Andalucian bodegas are within city boundaries and are specialist storehouses rather than wine producing farms. The emphasis is on the long term care of the sherry and the hard work goes into the continual soleras system employed to maintain consistent quality throughout all of the barrels.
The Guida Cadiz tour took in a selection of sherry producers to highlight the enormous range in size and output. In Jerez we went from the boutique producer Bodega Tradicion who release 4000 hand labelled bottles of specialist sherry a year to Real Tesoro on the edge of town who play soothing music to twenty thousand barrels in their vast aerodrome of a warehouse and can turn out 12000 bottles an hour.
Each bodega has its own style, quirks and attractions and the unexpected highlights from the ones I visited included:
Gonzalez Byass, a visitor orientated bodega within sight of the old cathedral, that has hidden streets that were once part of the inner city of Jerez within its complex.
Gutierrez Colosia, a friendly family run bodega in El Puerto de Santa Maria situated only a swirl and a spit from the Guadalete River. An intimate place with a gift for hospitality, great papas con choco (potatoes and cuttlefish stew) and a passion for flamenco.
Sandemans, the nearby equestrian school produces a surprisingly pleasant combination of horse and wine odours. The visit also included a dramatic audio visual presentation in the heart of its bodega
Bodega Tradicion, as well as rare single barrel aged sherries the boutique bodega also has a well presented collection of Spanish art including a fine Francisco de Goya, a Velazquez, and a wonderful Julio Romero deTorres Osbournes home of the symbolic bull that dominates the landscape in Southern Spain their bodega boasted a handsome 19th century tasting room with a good range of aged sherries to sip as you admire the architecture.
Real Tesoro – Valdespino, the largest of the bodegas with a stunning collection of contemporary and modern art, a museum of carriages, a store of old labels and a stud farm of rare blue black Spanish stallions.
Pedro Romero, the most charming bodega in Sanlucar with mould growing on the walls and floor of the warehouse and a chance to see the magic veil of yeast (the flor) protecting the wine in a specially cut display barrel.
•Eight bodegas in two mornings is very concentrated programme. If you want to linger a while in the beautiful bodega gardens or savour the Iberian ham and hard cheeses on offer then three sherry producers a day is enough to give you a good overview.
•The tourist board in Jerez have put together an excellent sherry and brandy route that highlights the best of all the sherry culture in the area including bodegas, interesting restaurants and historical sites. Before your trip have a look at their website www.turismojerez.com and ask your guide to include anything that catches your eye.
•Early spring and late autumn are the best times to take a sherry tour when you can avoid the scorching heat and enjoy all the glories of the bigger bodegas without the summer crowds. But take a heavy coat it can get chilly in those big damp spaces.
•In your rush to discover the wide variety of sherries it is easy to overlook the fact that most of the bodegas also produce excellent barrel matured brandies. Osbourne and Tradicion in particular produce brandies that are worth taking the detour.
There is a lot in Jerez to enjoy that goes hand in hand with the culture of the sherry bodegas. Conveniently four permanent collections are close to the Sandeman bodega in the North of the city and are within easy walking distance of each other. The Museo Taurino – Bullfighting museum, the Palacio del Tiempo – Clock museum, the Royal Andalusian School of Equestrian Art – with daily performances of dancing stallions and El Misterio de Jerez – a state of the art multi media museum dedicated to the history and culture of sherry. Jerez is also a centre for Romany culture with over 30,000 gypsies living in two distinct districts in the city. The tourist board have put together a Rutas del Flamenco de Jerez that highlights the best places to enjoy Romany culture around the city but for a concentrated dose of gypsy celebration visit during the Feria del Caballo in Spring (this year 27th April to 4th may)
The Hotel Palacio Garvey, a nineteenth century neoclassical mansion house and the former home of sherry barons the Garvey family has recently been converted into a sixteen bedroom small luxury hotel. It is right in the centre of the old town and provides a perfect base for a siesta after a hard morning of sherry tastings. Sherry is served on arrival, the chef in the hotel’s restaurant La Condesa serves dishes paired with local sherries and there is even an old bodega connected with the hotel that is now used for large parties.
www.sferahoteles.com, 0034956 326700
Ryanair fly direct daily flight to Jerez from Stanstead www.ryanair.com
Guida Cadiz can provide a tour that includes transfers from the airport and two days sherry tour and two nights at a four star hotel
Details and cost t.c contact 0034 605 88 23 01 www.cadizguia.com
If would like to discover sherry with other wine enthusiasts then wine tour specialist Arblaster and Clarke offer an annual tour of the area that includes sampling of some rare and interesting sherries. . and culminates in a visit to the last bar serving in Cadiz serving sherry straight from the barrel
http://www.winetours.co.uk/tours look under their Reserve Collection
Telephone 01730 263111 £1099 per person not including flights. Based on two people sharing.
For more information about Jerez and the Sherry triangle go to www.andalucia.org
A new generation of British chefs have embraced sherry as a great drink to enjoy at all stages during your meal. You can find their recommendations in The Perfect Marriage: The Art of Matching Food and Sherry Wines from Jerez, forward by Heston Blumenthal is published by Simon and Schuster, £12.99