Jerez Wine

Old: Books from the past often have something interesting lurking in their pages, so I enjoy looking through them, trying to discover these little gems. An English friend, who has lived in Jerez since 1968 and deals in antiques, recently gave me a copy of “Wines of the World” edited by André Simon to have a look at. This particular copy was printed in 1967 and priced at £5/5/-.

Mr Simon was a legend in the wine world a generation back; writer, critic, wine merchant, gourmet. There is a food and drink writing prize in his name and he also founded the “Wine and Food Society“, which continues to this day.

Naturally I delved straight into the section on Sherry, contributed by George Rainbird in this edition. He describes sherry as the greatest jewel in the crown of Spanish wine, but considering my earlier post it was fascinating to read these words:

“At least two of the Jerez bodegas do not fortify their wines at all for the domestic market, and do it for the English market only to enable the wines to travel. The resulting finos are extremely delicate and fine, and while it might be a degree or so below standard alcoholic strength, it is certainly a delicious wine. The odd thing about it is that I find this practice of making unfortified sherry universally denied throughout Spain; yet I know it to exist, and I personally like the natural wine very much indeed.”

And now for something new: This piece today shows South Africa is certainly taking bloggers seriously. I wouldn’t mind doing some of the things they will be getting up to, least of all hanging out with the guys from Stormhoek.