Drinking Wines

Sherry is a very English drink, despite its Spanish provenance. After a dip in popularity, sales are on the up again.

While reading the tavern bill of the loquacious and bawdy drunkard Sir John Falstaff in ‘Henry IV part 1′, Shakespeare’s Prince Hal lamented, O monstrous, but one halfpennyworth of bread to this intolerable deal of sack. In those days, the cost of two gallons of sack, or sherri (sic), was a mere 5s/8d.

Sherry, together with Port and Claret, are still seen as archetypical English wines. Claret sales are relatively stable at the present, and Port is making a steady recovery, although it is still mostly drunk at Christmas. But what of old sack?

Sherry comes from the region in southern Spain around the town of Jerez de la Frontera, originally named Xera by the earliest Phoenician settlers who brought vines with them in 1100BC.

Viciously fought over by successive invading Roman, Visigoth and Moorish armies, Jerez’s diverse cultural identity is amply displayed in its two millennia of documented winemaking. This tradition, including distillation into spirits for medical use, began to flourish in the 14th and 15th centuries with the first accurately recorded exports, or ’saca’s’ - the arabic derivation of Sack. However, it was not until the 1800s that both British and Dutch traders set their minds to exploiting the pale dry wines of Jerez, some even basing themselves in the town to create the household brands like Harvey, Croft Osborne and Williams and Humbert. The superior zone

Most Sherry - 97 per cent, in fact - is made using a somewhat ordinary white grape variety, the Palomino, a relative of the Riesling. The most favoured vine yards are located on soil to the north and west of Jerez, named the Superior Zone, being very rich in chalky calcium carbonate known as Albariza. The distinctive, almost white soil holds the early season rainfall, enabling the vines to flourish during the searing 40C heat of the summer growing season.

Once harvested, the delicately thin-skinned Palomino is gently squeezed using a pneumatic cushion press, so as not to include the skins, seeds or stems. From this initial pressing, the ‘yema’, comes around 80 per cent of the juice, which is used to make the lightest and most delicate Fino Sherry. The wine making process

To begin the winemaking process, a natural yeast, the ‘pie de cuba’, which occurs locally, is added to the juice. After 45 to 50 days, the juice has fermented into wine, but is not yet Sherry. An initial classification, taken after both rigorous scientific analysis and subjective tasting and perusal by expert winemakers, grades the wine as either a potential Fino, the finest, or as an Oloroso, the most fragrant. Finos are then fortified with grape spirit to 15 degrees of alcohol, whilst the Olorosos are strengthened to 18 degrees alcohol. Both are then put into casks. A year later, another analysis establishes which Finos are thought to have evolved more like an Oloroso, and these are then re-fortified to the higher alcohol level.

It is in the maturing system of ’solera y criadera’, that the true magic of Sherry really begins. After fortification, each year’s wine is placed on the top level, or ‘criadera’, of barrels in the maturing cellar (’bodega’). To facilitate this, around 30 per cent of the wine in the bottom layer of barrels, known as the ’solera’, is removed for bottling. The resulting space is then filled with wine from the next level up, and so on until the new year’s wine can be added to the top level, thereby refilling all the barrels. In this way, a perfect blending system is maintained, and constant quality and supply is balanced.

During this ageing and blending system, a thin layer of ‘flor’, a yeasty veil, covers the surface of the wine in each barrel. ‘Flor’ is peculiar to this region, and helps to impart the complex nutty aromas and clean, crisp bite that is synonymous with Fino Sherry.

Though Sherry fell in popularity after its heyday in the Sixties and Seventies, much is now being done to re-establish the clean, fruity, nutty Fino style as a serious competitor in the dry white wine market. With alcohol levels of some oak-aged Chardonnay and Semillon wines now reaching 14.5 per cent, the strength of Fino at 15 per cent is seen to be comparable. Freshly marketed in fashionably sleek, green glass bottles, with sharp informative labelling, Tio Pepe looks very similar to other crisp dry white wines on the off licence or supermarket shelf.

It is, however, in the compatibility with food that Fino Sherry comes into its own. It is time for UK wine drinkers to reclaim Sherry for our own. Whether it be a cool, clean glass of Fino with tapas, mixed with tonic water as a long refreshing lunchtime tipple, or even a glass of pure Pedro Ximinez to accompany a chocolate dessert, Sherry deserves to regain its prestigious mantle once again.

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THE VINEYARDS

There is in the soil of the 15,000 acres of vineyards of the Jerez country, lime, clay and sand, but in widely varying proportions, mixed quite differently, and ‘peppered’ in an erratic manner with small quantities of various minerals, the importance of which, as regards the quality of the grapes and of the wine made from them, is considerable.

The best Sherries all come from vineyards rich in lime: they are called Albarizas, from albo, white, their soil being chalk white. They are the vineyards upon which the ancient fame of Sherry was built and still stands. Carrascal, Macharnudo, Balbaina and Anina, within a few miles to the north-west and west of Jerez, are the largest and among the best of the Albariza vineyard districts; they are divided among a large number of owners. Nearly two-thirds of all the Sherry-producing vineyards are Albarizas.

The vineyards known as Barros (some 21 per cent. of total), are mostly to the south-east of Jerez; their soil contains a higher proportion of clay: it is richer and darker. Others, called Arenas (17 per cent.), are scattered here and there in what might be called sand pockets; they produce more ‘grapes to the acre, but grapes fit only for making the lighter types of Sherry.

THE GRAPES

Of the limited number of white grape varieties that flourish in the lime, clay and sandy soils of Jerez vineyards, one is outstanding, the white Palomino, also known as Listan amongst other names. It is grown in all Albariza vineyards, as well as in some others, and it bears large bunches of medium-sized, very sweet, golden grapes.

The Canocazo or Mollar blanco is also a very sweet grape that is cultivated in Albariza vineyards, but it is too shy a bearer to be popular. The Pedro Ximenez, the sweetest grape of all, is grown to a limited extent only, and in the folds of some Albariza vineyards which hold a little more moisture. Albillo grapes are mostly grown in Barros vineyards, whilst the Perruno, Mantuos, Beba and the larger type of white Moscatel (gordo) are varieties cultivated chiefly in Arenas vineyards: they yield a greater abundance of grapes, quite sweet to the taste because of their lack of acidity, but most of them are actually not so rich in grape-sugar. Thus, whilst the alcoholic strength of a wine made from some of these grapes averages 11 per cent., that which is made from Palomino grapes reaches 12.5 to 14 per cent., and from Pedro Ximenez grapes 15 per cent. of alcohol.

THE VINTAGE

September is the Vintage month when Palomino, Pedro Ximenez and all the finer species of grapes are ripe and must be gathered, whilst coarser grapes are usually picked in October. The pickers do not cut off all bunches indiscriminately, but the fully ripe ones only, going up and down the same rows of vines several times; there is little or no rest for the vintage workers between sunrise and sunset, but there is no sign of any feverish hurry among them, nor of un-Spanish haste.

The freshly picked grapes are conveyed in baskets or hampers to large holders set on the back of a patient mule, and when these holders are full, the grapes are delivered to the nearest farm, where they arrive fresh and dusty: the contents of each holder is then spread upon round esparto grass rush mats, and they are left there for twenty-four hours in the open before being brought to the lagar within, and pressed. The Pedro Ximenez grapes, for making sweet wine, are left under the scorching September sun for a fortnight; they are covered at night with esparto grass matting to avoid any condensation of the morning dew upon them.

To get the complete free Ebook about Sherry, go to www.thewinelover.org

Andrew Johnson loves a glass of wine. He also likes to write, so a website about wine seemed to make sense. Visit http://www.thewinelover.org for a free wine eBook, more articles, information about wine and a new forum.

Sherry is a fortified wine, made in Spain from three types of grapes: Palomino, Pedro Xim?nez, and Muscat (Moscatel). Sherry-style wines made in other countries often use other grape varieties.

Sherry differs from other wines because of how it is treated after fermentation. It is first fortified with brandy and then if destined to be fino style a yeast called flor is allowed to grow on top. Oloroso style is fortified to a strength where the flor cannot grow. (In contrast, port wine is fortified to a higher percentage of alcohol than sherry, effectively preventing the growth of any yeast.)

REGIONS

JEREZ DE LA FRONTERA or JEREZ for short, the Scheris of the Moors, one of their fortresses in Spain, was long a walled city of great strategic importance. Today it is a busy town, and the hub of the Sherry Trade. It stands upon the main road from Seville to Cadiz, some 9 miles north of Port St. Mary at the top corner of the Bay of Cadiz and at the mouth of the Guadalete; and 12 miles east of Sanlucar, upon the left bank of the Guadalquivir, immediately before it flows into the Atlantic.

JEREZ has given its name to Sherry, the wine of Jerez (both names Jerez and Sherry being corruptions of the old .Moorish name of the town, Scheris), which Shakespeare and all Elizabethans loved and praised above all others. To the Victorians, Sherry and hospitality were synonymous: few, indeed, were then the homes without a welcoming decanter of Sherry upon the mahogany, awaiting the pleasure of your company. Today, in spite of the notorious fickleness of fashion; in spite of high taxes and of bureaucratic controls, Sherry, the wine made from the white grapes of the Jerez vineyards, still is still first favorite among all the wines imported into Great Britain.

ANDALUCIA

Andalucia no longer comprises three kingdoms as it once did, nor is it any longer the great Moorish Province that it was once, but still is the richest and sunniest part of Spain, stretching from Castile, in the North, to the Straits, in the South; and from the Mediterranean, in the East, to Portugal and the Atlantic in the West.

SEVILLE the capital of Andalucia, is one of the fairest cities in the world, but sea-going ships have long ceased to come up the Guadalquivir to its once busy quays with the gold and goods of the Indies. The inexhaustible wealth of Andalucia is in its fertile soil and genial climate, its wheat, oil and wine; its oranges, figs and other fruits; its light-hearted, hard-working people.

Vines flourish and wine is made in many parts of Andalucia, but the vineyards which produce the finest and most distinctive white Spanish wine, Sherry, that which brings solace and joy to all men and women of taste and discerning thirst, are the vineyards scattered twixt Guadalquivir and Guadalete, during the last lap of their seawards run, the first reaching the Atlantic at Sanlucar de Barrameda, and the other the Bay of Cadiz, at Port St. Mary.

Andrew Johnson loves a glass of wine. He also likes to write, so a website about wine seemed to make sense. Visit http://www.thewinelover.org for a free wine eBook, more articles, information about wine and a new forum.