Jerez Wine

The next tutored sherry tasting with appropriate tapas at the West London Wine School, the Wine Cellars, Fulham is on February 26th.

Places filling up fast…

Details here

Here’s an interesting post by Fiona Beckett about some food pairings with Emilio Hidalgo Sherries.
My post about Hidalgo on Catavino is here.

Shots from inside the Bodega. Some of the butts are on stone rests rather than the more usual wooden ones – stone rests are common in Sanlucar.

Some of the Hidalgo wines mentioned in Fiona’s post.

It’s not easy to get one’s hands onto bottles of the Equipo Navazos wines in this part of Spain, which seems strange, especially since this is the home of Sherry. I’ve tried before, without success. I’m assured there are good reasons for this, so the only thing I could feel when I managed to get examples of the latest Equipo Navazos wines was indecent glee. The number 18, a Fino made from grapes grown in the Macharnudo Alto “pago” and the number 19 which is an ancient Cream Sherry bottled in very small quantities.

This appears to be the fourth time Equipo Navazos have bottled a Fino like this number 18. A full (in all senses) and ageworthy Fino which, despite the dogma, is not a contradiction. Finos and Manzanillas are capable of developing in the bottle and I think all the Navazos wines are especially selected to develop and improve. The number 19 Cream is incredibly complex and layered. If you can get your hands on either of these wines then I think the price (they won’t be cheap, but definitely will be good value) is worth paying.

My tasting notes for the 18 Fino and the 19 Cream.

A very interesting little wine fair in El Puerto de Santa Maria this weekend devoted to the red wines of Cadiz province.

I’ve only just been sent the details:
Place:
Cloisters at the IES Santo Domingo, c/ Santo Domingo 29, El Puerto de Santa Maria.
Times:
Saturday 6th Feb 2010, 12:00-15:00 and 18:00-21:00
Sunday 7th Feb 2010, 12:00-15:00

Producers represented:

Barbadillo
Cortijo de Jara
Entrechuelos
González Byass
Huerta de Albalá
Ibargüen
Luis Pérez
Manuel Aragón
Páez Morilla
Regantío
Rey Habis
Viñedos de Taramilla

There are 3 tutored tastings, two on the Saturday and one on Sunday (in Spanish and limited to 60 persons each).

Please see here for details in Spanish

A few articles about sherry have appeared in US publications recently:

Sarasota Herald Tribune
Silicon Valley Mercury News – this piece has a list of West Coast sherry suppliers
Cincinnati City Beat here and here

Winter is hitting the UK pretty hard at the moment. To warm up I suggest sherry and it seems the Gonzalez Byass Apostoles Palo Cortado and the Waitrose Palo Cortado (by Lustau). They have both been tipped by two other writers in as many days…

1. Tim’s Wine Blog (Tim has been tasting quite a bit of sherry recently, so read through earlier posts).

2. Andrew Neather at the Evening Standard.

It’s got everything: Bulls, vines, harvest, feria, sherry…

Link to film is here

This just in a second ago.

MsMarmite does Sherry: Read all about it.

Would love to have been a fly on the wall…

I’ve just clocked this piece by Patricia Langton on the Harpers website. A positive article about the future of good quality sherry in London.

Patricia mentions two restaurants, Barrica and Number 22 and also says a sherry bar is due to open early 2010 (whoo hoo). Called Bar Pepino, it will be a side-kick to Camino in Kings Cross.

There are also another couple of other restos I should mention, which have interesting sherry lists: Salt Yard and Dehesa.

All these restaurants have been added to my London Restaurants page.

I was promised a tip-off by Graham Hines of The Sherry Institute in the UK, but it never came, so I missed this. The only UK press article I can find, in the Mirror, says “exclusive”, so perhaps that’s why.

Anyway, Carol Anne Duffy, the new Poet Laureate came to Jerez to pick up her butt of sherry. A Manzanilla apparently.

Photo by Maggie Hannan