Tag Archive for: Sherry

Win a fabulous six-bottle case of sherry to kick-start 2025

Jerez is an entrancing Spanish city in its own right. Amazing tapas, Andalusian horses, flamenco. And as the Capital of Sherry, it offers a unique wine culture to explore and fall in love with. Richard Oakley, on a random visit, did. It has inspired his new online venture, Sherry Amor, providing an insider’s introduction through a range of mixed sherry cases.

The first three on sale showcase very different producers – venerable Valdespino (1430), specialists in single vineyard and aged sherries; Jerez bastions Williams and Humbert (founded by Englishmen in 1877) and Sanchez Romate (family-owned since 1781) offering dry styles; and Barbadillo.

The latter bodega is steeped in history, too. Dating back to 1821, it is now run by the seventh generation of the family in Sanlúcar de Barrameda, 25km north west of Jerez. Sanlúcar is the epicentre of Manzanilla, the bone dry sherry whose saline finish is attributed to the vineyards’ position on the Guadalquivir estuary, from where Columbus and Magellan once set sail.


I have a Sherry Amor Barbadillo case worth £122, to give away

The company’s Solear is Spain’s best-selling Manzanilla and is included in Sherry Amor’s mixed case of six Barbadillo half bottles (37.5 cl) that also features two of their aged dry sherries, a medium-sweet Oloroso, sweet Moscatel… and  a Manzanilla Pasada En Rama de la Pastora. The extra ageing on a ‘pasada’ wine adds complexity and body. ‘En Rama’ means bottling straight from the cask with no fining or filtration.

Just answer this simple question: Which town is the centre of Manzanilla sherry production?

Email your answer (with name and postal address) to neil@neilsowerby.co.uk  by midnight on December 31. Winner will be notified the following week.

What makes sherry so special? I asked Richard Oakley…

It’s nearly Christmas. Time to dust off the Bristol Cream at the back of the drinks cabinet. Doesn’t sherry still suffer from an image problem? The drink of an elderly demographic? Or is that changing?

I don’t think sherry has an image problem. More and more people are discovering the range of styles that are available and loving them. They’re unique wines, full of complexity and flavour, great value and practical, too – they keep very well once opened. Oh, and I have nothing against Harvey’s Bristol Cream!

There are so many different sherry styles, from bone-dry to lusciously sweet. You are focusing on the drier ones. Why is that?

I’m offering more dry styles of sherry as I generally find them more interesting to drink, and hope other people do, too. Most of the six-bottle mixed cases I’m offering have maybe one sweet and five dry styles. In addition, I think the dry styles are perhaps less well-known, so there is more to discover.

I think most folk know fino as a dry aperitif, but explain the difference between amontillado, oloroso and palo cortado. So drinkers know what to expect.

All three are all made from the same grape, Palomino Fino, but one main difference is in the amount of oxygen they are exposed to during development. Amontillado is initially aged under a thick layer of yeast, known as flor, whereas Oloroso is aged in full contact with oxygen. This results in a more nutty, oaky and aromatic flavour for Amontillado and a more toasty, balsamic and dried fruit flavour for Oloroso. Palo Cortado is produced when the flor goes a bit rogue, doesn’t develop fully and is a flavour combination of the two, often with a very dry, saline character. 

Half of the Valdespino case is devoted to wines with some age on them. Why are they worth the premium? Is sherry as a whole good value?

Some, but not many, unfortified wines are drinkable when 20 or 30 years old. If you compare sherry with the prices of an aged red or white wine, sherry is incredible value. You’re getting a ton of complexity and flavour for your money in a 20 or 30-year-old sherry! I’m planning to add more aged sherry products to the Sherry Amor list in 2025. 

Not just for sipping on their own, how food-friendly are sherries? What are the best matches?

Dry sherries are incredibly savoury and therefore versatile food wines. Fino and Manzanilla are the same alcoholic strength as some unfortified white wines, so think seafood. I like to enjoy Amontillado with cured meats, especially Iberico jamon, as there’s a nuttiness to both. Oloroso is great with a roast chicken; sometimes I add a splash to the roasting pan. Palo Cortado can stand up to some highly-spiced Asian dishes, especially classic home-cooked Indian dishes such as keema peas. On the dessert front, Pedro Ximenez with vanilla ice cream and raisins is a classic. Aged sherry wines also make for a great aperitif or digestif. But nobody should feel obliged to follow any rules.

Setting up Sherry Amor demonstrates your passion for this classic tipple in a world of so many wine choices. Sum up what makes sherry so special?

Sherry is a unique style of drink, in terms of production and flavour, from a very specific geographical area. Its production and consumption is very closely intertwined with Britain, having been mentioned by Chaucer, Shakespeare and Dickens. I think you can taste some of that history when you drink the wines.

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Best Palo Cortado I’ve ever tasted? What food matches do it justice?

Sometimes a wine comes along that makes you re-think a neglected old favourite. That’s the case with Cayetano del Pino Palo Cortado Solera. It has been the subject of rave reviews on The Wine Society website but was I going to fork out even £15.50 for the least definable of sherry styles? Yet I have been paying the like for those new season ‘fresh’ finos tagged as En Rama (‘from the branch’).

As it turned out the Cayetano del Pino is among the wine world’s great bargains. Its creators, Bodegas Sánchez Romate – one of the few family-owned operators left in Jerez – are virtually giving away a fortified wine of this quality. Around 15 years old, pale bronze in colour, nutty, dry with a finish as long as the journey south from Madrid.

Aficionados are always complaining/gloating that the fortified wines of Jerez are undervalued. Image problem, you know? And of all sherry image problems, Palo Cortado’s is the thorniest. So Is it a heavier Amontillado? Or a lighter Oloroso? Neither. Though some cheap end Palo Cortados may be blends of both.

“It is the most ambiguous of all the sherry styles and the reverence with which it is regarded is undoubtedly fuelled by its air of mystery and legend…” write the authors of Sherry, Manzanilla & Montilla. 

Without going into technicalities, Palo Cortado has been the black sheep of the sherry-making process since the 19th century. This process is based on the unique solera system of maturation across a large number of casks and fractional blending over many years. 

A key to a young sherry’s development towards Amontillado status is the protective layer of ‘flor’ or yeasty bloom that settles on the surface of the base fino. Serendipitously it fails to persist in certain cask batches, the subsequent oxygen contact encouraging more intense flavour and alcohol. Each cask is then re-fortified to over 17 per cent and shifted to a Palo Cortado solera to age oxidatively.

Once a matter of chance but with modern techniques it’s down to manipulation. Cortado fans can spend far more than 15 quid on what is a rarity, representing only one per cent of all sherry made.

THE CUT STICK

The name means ‘cut stick,’ in reference to the mark made on the cask when this style of wine is recognised. Since the wine was originally destined to be a fino or amontillado, it will initially have had a single stroke marked on the cask. When the cellar master realises that the wine is becoming a palo cortado, he draws a cross (or cut) through the initial stroke (or stick), resulting in a crossed stroke or ‘cut stick’.

A fond memory from visiting Jerez was tasting in the cellars of Bodegas Rey Fernando de Castilla in the company of its avuncular owner, the Norwegian Jan Pettersen. I particularly love their Pedro Ximenez but the Antique Palo Cortado is equally distinctive. Boutinot Wines of Cheadle import the range and at each annual Manchester tasting I’d renew acquaintance of this honeyed, saline, finessed example.

For the moment, though, the Cayetano del Pino has stolen my heart. And not mine alone. One of my favourite wine writers, Rose Murray Brown reviewed it thus: “Lovely combo of vibrant freshness and rich texture. Our tasters loved the enticing toffee honeyed aromas and rich nutty complexity (and the pretty label). Bone dry, but not as searingly dry as some we tasted. Sleek elegant and attractive on the palate.”

What is the best food match for it, though? It would be easy, as with Amontillado or Oloroso, to sip it with a bowl of nuts, but it does enhance certain partnerships.

The obvious one is cheese, particularly hard cheese. My compadre and Spanish food guru Gerry Dawes, from New York, opined: ”I stopped using red table wines, really good ones, with cheese quite some time ago. Cheese completely changes the make-up of the red wine, and you lose the nuances. Sherry has enough elements that it stands out in relief.”

Triple cream cheeses might work, but i’m not sure; aged Alpine cheeses are definitely a perfect fit. 

Princess Alisia Victoria is just the kind of Alpine cheese that pairs beautifully with Palo Cortado

I’m lucky enough to have within 10 minutes’ walk, the Calder Cheesehouse, which has a delectable range of unpasteurised Beaufort, Comte, Gruyere and, more under the radar, Schlossberger and Princess Alisia-Victoria, both from Switzerland. In France’s Jura region, which we visited pre-Pandemic, the recognised accompaniment for Comte is the local, oxidised Vin Jaune, that has affinities with Palo Cortado. 

In Southern Spain itself it matches well with Iberico lomo or salchichon; at home in Todmorden we tried it successfully with a mixed charcuterie platter (air dried ham, lomo, culatello and coppa) from local producers Porcus. The sherry and cured fat make good buddies. Grilled fish seems to work with Palo Cortado, sardines and anchovies, too, but I’m not convinced about smoked salmon.

Pour a glass of the Cayetano del Pino Palo Cortado Solera, your charcuterie platter awaits

• For a succint explanation of Palo Cortado’s history and current specification visit the specialist website Sherry Notes or better still read Rose Murray Brown’s Masterclass on Palo Cortado.

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