"Oh Sherry, Our love holds on"

After trying to make plans to go on a fisherman's boat but with no way of getting back to the port and trying to go out fishing from 2am to 6am before realistically thinking how tired we already were and how exhausted we would be the following day, we departed the port for Jerez de la Frontera to visit the immaculate sherry and brandy maker, Rey Fernando de Castillo. Although it is exported to 45 countries, 50% of their production stays in Spain, which we were told a lot of locals will buy their products even if it is more expensive because of the consistently and genuinely good quality. On the other hand, some sherry makers just make sherry to be sold as exports to probably people who enjoy what they know as sherry but haven't really experienced or tasted the real deal.

Sherry is the second Spanish export, following only behind Rioja wines. Sherry is what the Spanish, or at least the Andalusians, call wine or vino de Jerez, whereas most of us would call it just sherry -keeping the classification separate from wine. It is, in fact, a fortified dry white wine meant to be enjoyed with food whereas blended and mass-marketed sherries are generally sweeter and drunk as an aperativo. Because it is aged in oak barrels for  a minimum of 3 years in which the amino acids release umami sensations, sherry is good with and in food. The low acidity also makes it appetizingly-agreeable combined with vinegar as in dishes such as escabece or ceviche.  (HA! appetizingly is an actual word!) Palomina (the main and local grape variety used in sherries that occupies up to 95% of the sherry vineyard area in Spain), along with the area's microclimate (generally warm but often hot and dry but occasionally cooled by the near-ocean winds and the chalky soil), the low acidity, and the cellars conditions (especially the bare floors for the solera system) create a top fermentation. The wooden casks of the dry white wine are only filled to about 75% percent so that as they age and mature, a yeast, or flor, grows on the top of the wine. The flor that naturally grows is not only of a local variety that develops the sherry, but allows the wine to ferment as it stops the oxidation. This allows the sherry to develop a tremendous personality from the layer of locally grown yeast typical of the region's winds. This is terroir at it's best.  It's also why sherry is a D.O.P product that must come from the Jerez region of Spain. The vineyards within the Jerez region must be grown in the ménage à trois of Jerez de la Frontera, Sanlucar de Barrameda and Puerto de Santa Maria. 

• White sherries like fino are complex, light and dry, whereas manzanilla, a variety of dry fino, are more delicate, fresh, almost salty from the sea, and sold younger. These are 12-13% alcohol and aged 3-4 years. 
• Brown sherries are 18% alcohol and should be matured 8-10 years otherwise it will taste "unfinished" like biting into an unripe fruit with no aromas. It is one of the driest wines as there is no residual sugars - the bacterias eat it over time. The Rey Fernando de Castillo sherry has no treatment - it goes straight into the bottle so the wine in the glass is the same wine in the cask. This type of sherry is best consumed with consumme soup, mushroom pate or foie gras, or a sharp cheese. 
• Pedro Ximenez is another type of sherry named after Peter Simmons who brought over this particular grape variety from Germany in the 1700's. Because the grapes came from a cold, humid climate to a hot one, the grapes tended to shrink after they grew because the skin was too thin to protect itself from the heat of the sun. Therefore, this sherry is made from pressed raisins - a unique wine made from sun-dried grapes. It is technically a white wine but appears black in colour. Aged for 30 years, it is extremely sweet with 500g of residual sugar. It is best served slightly chilled with chocolate, ice cream or a non-salty blue cheese. yum. 

tasting the 5 year old and 80 year old

We also tasted their Brandy. Brandy is a distilled wine, but it is made from "whole wine" that has been aged for at least 6 months in oak and isn't a grape-reminant like grappa is, for example. There is also nothing added like sugars in brandy or cognac. The wine is distilled in copper vats over a live fire. The water and the alcohol evaporate, but the alcohol evaporates faster into a tube which then condenses into liquid again at 65% alcohol. It is aged in new American oak which has not been used before and then into a previously used sherry barrel for a minimum of 5 years. The barrels do not move. The solera barrels are the oldest and are the closest to the floor (solera = suelo = floor). The top barrels are refilled from top to bottom so that there is a little bit of harvest in every bottle, creating a uniform consistency in each brandy. Therefore, the younger wines take on certain characteristics of the older wines and all are uniquely blended among age and among the casks. We tasted one from the barrel of 5 years and another more developed and deeper coloured one of 80 years.

"Holanda" indicates top quality. 

At the end of the tour we tasted their sherry vinegar. Sherry vinegar is known as the perfume and soul of Andalusian kitchens. It is a favourite with gazpacho, chickpeas, or as a salad dressing mixed with some extra virgin olive oil and dijon mustard. The sherry vinegar that they produced really surprised me. They only make 2 bottles a year due to it's production process. It is made with "broken" wine-by products, not made intentionally. Rey Fernando de Castillo sherry vinegar takes a least 15 years to become sherry vinegar. Since there are no official rules for vinegar - as a condiment - so many of them are factory based which take days, not years, to produce and these lack the aromas that generate from and develop with age.

Williams & Sonoma buy sherry vinegar directly from Rey Fernando de Castillo for $11 and sell it in America for $45. apparently. I couldn't find it on their website.

After our tasting session, we celebrated Reena's birthday with chocolate cake and bubbly bottles of cava on the hotel's rooftop overlooking the illumiated little town of Conil and the vast blackness that hinted of the sea.


I don't know if love sherry. I know my palate isn't experienced or developed enough to appreciate it as a wine. But I do like Journey.

Oh, you know that there's a fever

(there's a fever I know)

Oh, that you'll never find nowhere else

(nowhere, nowhere else)

Can't you feel it burnin' on and on

Oh Sherrie

Our love holds on

Holds on

Oh Sherrie

Our love holds on

(guitar solo)

Oooh Sherrie  - Journey.