Jerez Wine

If you’ve never tried PX, you should. It’s a love it or hate it style of sherry, but you won’t know until you’ve had it. Personally, I’m a fan, but since it’s such a rich wine I can’t usually manage more than one glass. It’s the only naturally sweet style of sherry around and is made from a different grape to the more usual Palomino Fino. It’s called Pedro Ximénez . The grapes are left to raisinate out in the sun (for sometimes several weeks) before the juice is pressed. PX sherries are usually dark, gloopy and very sweet.

Today I am trying PX sherries from two of my favourite little bodegas. Fernando de Castilla and Almocaden. These bodegas are right next to each other. They share a wall. Both produce excellent sherries, but have different approaches. Almocaden is very traditional while Fernando de Castilla is a bit funky. I recommend a visit to either, but you do need to make an appointment. Almocaden does have a small shop inside the bodega in amongst the barrels. They sell their sherries by the bottle and also “a granel” (ie bring your own empty bottle and they’ll fill it up). The shop also stocks artisnal breads, chorizo and of course Vinagre de Jerez.

The Almocaden PX is opaque. Swirling it around a bit shows dark brown almost tawny colours. On the nose rich, raisin and dried fig aromas. The Fernando de Castilla is more yellow when swirled and has a less pronounced nose than the Almocaden. It also has raisin aromas, but with toffee or caramel alongside.

In the mouth the Almocaden is very sweet and viscous. The dried fig flavour comes through very strongly – only the crunchy little fig seeds are missing. It’s hot, which is not surprising since the alcohol is 18%, but not out of balance. The Fernando de Castilla is less viscous and seems to have more structure, not as fat. The toffee flavours come through along with a nutty, even woody edge. Both are very long lasting.

A strong, salty, blue cheese should work well with both of these sherries.

It’s been a while. Many apologies! From now on I hope to post more often than every second year.

Something I have been wanting to do for a while is side-by-side tastings of sherries from the same styles. Today it’s the turn of Finos: Tio Pepe by Gonzalez Byass has to be the best know Fino around. La Ina by Pedro Domecq soon to be by Osborne (the brand was recently sold by Pernod Ricard to Osborne) is probably not as wide-spread as Tio Pepe, but here in Jerez they are friendly rivals. Most little bars in town are either a La Ina establishment or are for Tio Pepe.

I bought half-bottles of these two wines. The half-bottle has to be the ideal format for Fino, especially when sitting outside in a sunny spot (where one should always try to be when drinking Fino), the wine doesn’t really have time to warm up before the bottle is empty. If the bottle is not finished in one sitting, then it should be easy to do so before it goes stale.

Both these wines had a very pale golden colour, La Ina with perhaps a touch more colour. Tio Pepe’s aroma was slightly more punchy than La Ina’s, but on the nose both had clean, pronounced, yeasty, flor aromas. Tio Pepe seemed just a tiny bit fruitier, with hints of green apple while La Ina had a more savoury edge. On the finish La Ina went on for a bit longer.

To be honest there was not much in it. Either would have done for me.

I wonder if there is not more difference within bottles of these wines than between them?