Jerez Wine

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.

This was a new one on me and I was fascinated.

Equipo Navazos, who usually select sherries for one-off bottlings have got together with Niepoort to produce a white wine. The first I saw, or knew of, this Navazos-Niepoort 2008 White Wine was when Luís Seabra, the winemaker at Niepoort, conjured up a bottle at a dinner hosted by the Douro Boys after their EWBC tasting. This was not the only interesting wine Luis or the other Douro Boys conjured up, but I’ll stick to the story.

It seems what Navazos-Niepoort were trying to do with this wine is rediscover the roots of the wines from what is now the Jerez DO.  Wine from Palomino grapes, from the best terroir – the white Albariza soils,  aged for 4-5 months under flor and unfortified. There is more about what they were trying to achieve with this wine on the Equipo Navazos website. Admittedly I did not try this wine under perfect conditions. We had been tasting robust Douro reds and then drinking them with dinner, but it reminded me a bit of the “mosto” wines, which are available all around Jerez when it starts to get cold, so late November and December. These mostos are the new wines and unfortified.  The mostos will not have spent the same amount of time under flor, so probably not as complex, but the connection is there. There is a sweet, melon characteristic which I’m sure comes from a bit of time under flor. It appears the wine was bottled by Bodegas Páez Morilla, but I’m not sure where it was made or aged.

I’ve mentioned unfortified wines from Jerez before, and it’s worth reading the comments left on that post by Álvaro Girón.

There’s a piece in the local rag today about bastard Anglo-Saxon Sherry.

Apparently the EU has signed an agreement with Australia banning “Sherry”, “Port”, “Chablis” and “Champagne” down under. I think the article might have left out Burgundy, or is that “Burgundy”. I’m not terribly up to speed with the process, as I was under the impression Australia had already been done, and not just for “Sherry” purposes. The article says a start was made on this in the UK in the 1960s, which is true. A suit was brought in England, in 1967, by four Jerez bodegas. The court accepted “Sherry” was an English corruption of the Arab name for Jerez, ie Sherish. Even so, the target of this case, “British Sherry”, lived on happily until 1996, when finally (and rightly) only wines produced in the Jerez-Xérès-Sherry DO could be called “Sherry” (but only within the European Union). The piece also says the UK was brought to its senses in 1971, when it joined the EEC (actually it joined in January 1973), but I’m not sure that had any effect at all. Spain joining the EU in 1986 probably had more of a bearing on things.

This process is a complicated business for some: Take the “bastard” Sedgwick’s “Old Brown Sherry” for example (it even has its own Facebook page, which is more than any real sherry can claim). Fondly known as “Obs”, this South African winter-warmer and sharpener for Rugby spectators has been around since 1916. Does this heritage not count for something, can an exception not be made? Another thing which stands out in the article is the large volume (relatively speaking) of “false” sherries sold in the affected countries vs the amount of real stuff imported from Spain; implying the banning of the word “sherry” will lead to some kind of turnaround. I’m pretty sure Sedgwick will simply call their wine “O.B.S” or something like that and flog it just as easily. I doubt much will change. It’s all just a marketing thing and in that respect many of the Jerez bodegas have been asleep at the wheel for years.

Finally, I do slightly regret the writer’s use of words like “bastardo” and “falso” in the article. Don’t forget, Jerez brandies were once sold as Coñac or even Cognac. And afterall, is imitation not the sincerest form of flattery?

This week Jerez played host to “Vinoble“. It’s the world’s only wine fair dedicated to noble and fortified wines. The “salón”, as it’s called here, started last Sunday, ended Wednesday and happens every second year. As wine fairs go, it’s not very big, but this is made up for by the many interesting wines and the beautiful setting. The stands were laid out in the formal San Fernando gardens and inside the Villavicencio Palace, all within Jerez’s moorish fortress – the Alcázar. The nature of sweet and fortified wines means many of the producers were small, boutique, family-owned, experimental and passionate. I was very lucky to be given a couple of tickets for the trade days by a good friend here in Jerez. It’s a pity I didn’t have the time to try every one of the wines being exhibited.

As I arrived on the first day I bumped into a local mate, Stuart. This was fortunate as it’s so much better having someone to compare notes with. As a student in Scotland, Stuart used to work in wine merchants so knows his stuff. He also has all the WSET certificates under his belt.

Trying not to go off piste too soon, I’ll write about the sherries first. Two of the sherries sampled stand out for me because their palate was so unexpectedly different to anything suggested on the nose.

The first is the Lustau 1989 Añada, an age-dated sherry, which in itself is unusual. Everything on the nose pointed to a dry oloroso. Nutty and woody with faint aldehyde character. On the palate however, it was sweet, smooth, full and warm with flavours of dates and almonds.

The second wine, the Bodegas Tradición Palo Cortado Muy Viejo, was the opposite. This 32-year-old wine had a soft nutty nose with a certain sweetness, possibly a hint of honey. On the palate it was bone dry, almost salty, with woody and toasted flavours.

Lustau make one of my favourite finos, which we also tried. Puerto Fino. Its nose reminds me of roasted and salted sunflower seeds. My friend Stuart didn’t like this aroma and described it quite differently! It had a smooth, silky mouthfeel, which was matched by a refreshing acidity. Flavours in the mouth were hazelnuts and a slight saltiness. The only other wine we tried at the Lustau stand was their East India Solera, a dark-brown sweet sherry smelling of nuts and dried figs with just a suggestion of something savoury and salty, Bovril perhaps? In the mouth it was sweet, full bodied, complex and balanced, with flavours of nuts, wood and caramel.

Rey Fernando de Castilla make a very interesting fino viejo called Antique Fino. Some of their fino butts selected for inclusion in the amontillado solera are bottled under this label. It’s a fino from butts where the flor has become patchy and a bit of oxidation has crept in, adding a touch of amber to the appearance and a nuttyness and fullness on the nose and in the mouth. For comparison we tried their Classic Fino, a pale lemon colour, green apples and straw on the nose and dry, flinty flavours in the mouth. Of their other wines we tried the Antique Amontillado which had quite strong aldehyde character on the nose, slightly medicinal with iodine aromas. In the mouth it was nutty, woody and salty with a long dry finish. Their Antique Palo Cortado had less aldehyde on the nose and a hint of caramel in the mouth. We were fortunate to speak with the owner of Fernando de Castilla, Jan Pettersen, and his commercial director Andrés Soto. They are a small company aiming high and it shows. Their wines and brandy are first class. Yes, brandy, because Mr Petterson kindly poured us a slug of that too. I don’t know which of their bradies it was, but it had a clean, fresh nose with aromas of apple and oak. On the mouth it was soft, smooth and dry with a long dry finish. Very nice!

More about other sherries in my next post, also the South African stickies and other assorted sweets at Vinoble…