Sherry Bodega Visits - Some Highlights

Instead of trying to write about individual visits, I thought it would be fun to summarize a bit and share some highlights.

Emilio Hidalgo was my first visit to a Sherry Bodega. I find it hard to remember the details of a first visit - my senses are always so overwhelmed by the newness of it all. A few things stick out in my mind, however, when I remember the Hidalgo visit. Fernando Hidalgo was our guide, and he and Peter caught up a bit as we walked though the courtyard and into the Bodega - Peter had last been in Jerez in May. The first wine that Fernando poured for us was the very special old Fino called La Panesa, and as he was about to draw wine from a barrel he said "Wait, this is the barrel you tasted last time, Peter. We should taste another barrel."

This is impressive. There are obviously many barrels of La Panesa and to remember from which one a rather quiet journalist tasted many months prior...well, it shows an attention to detail and an immersion in one's work that I think is reflected in the wines in general. We tasted several barrels and then walked out of one Bodega and into another.

We passed these tools hanging on the wall. In order to respect Fernando's privacy, I'm not supposed to discuss here what these are actually used for, but I can tell you that it has nothing to do with making wine.*

These old barrel parts lay in a courtyard outside of another Hidalgo Bodega. Between this and the tools above, I began to feel as though I better behave myself at Bodegas Emilio Hidalgo.

In the tasting room we sampled several wines from bottle, including the miraculous old Amontillado called El Tresillo. How cool is that old label? This is one of many great wines I drank that is not available in the US, to my knowledge, a real shame.

Bodegas Tradición is barely over 10 years old, very new for a Sherry producer. The wines, however, are much older. An old Bodega along with wines of very high quality was purchased by a group including billionaire Joaquin Rivero Valcare. Here is a blog post that describes this story in more detail.

We walked through the facilities and I was fascinated by the guy wax-sealing the bottles.

I suppose this is something that happens at wineries all over the world, but it was nice to realize that every bottle of wine that leaves Tradición is sealed in exactly this way.

This is a paper filter. They are stacked together, separated by porous plastic, and this is what some producers use to filter their wines.

I was surprised to learn that this is among the most gentle of filtering techniques. How could that be gentle, wine having to work its way through many layers of plastic and something that feels sort of like paper mâché? Everything is relative, I guess.

Before going to the tasting room to sample the wines, we visited the museum. Yes, that's right, there is a museum in the Bodega, filled with master works owned by Mr. Rivero Valcare. The above tile painting is by Picasso at age 8.

We tasted Tradición's four Sherries, a 1975 vintage Oloroso, and their brandies too. I like these wines very much, particularly the Amontillado and the Palo Cortado - another wine that is not available in the US.

Peter already described the incredible tasting of the Palmas at González Byass. Another highlight for me at Byass was tasting a barrel of Amontillado wine of indeterminate age, but at least 100 years old. The wine was undrinkable, and Antonio Flores said as much before we tasted it. After enough time in barrel, a wine takes on so much tannin from the wood that it becomes difficult to drink. That said, this wine could be bottled and sold as perfume.

I also learned here to rid myself of preconceived notions about the value of mass produced Sherries like Tio Pepe. I'm not saying that I'm stocking up on Tio Pepe, but it is wrong to think that this is bad wine - it is not. González Byass is a grand old Bodega and they have the resources to make very high quantities of Tio Pepe, and quality is consistent. There are other basic Finos that I much prefer, but I would gladly drink Tio Pepe if those are not available, and I think it stacks up pretty well against most of the world's $12 wine.

Fernando de Castilla is a small Bodega making high end Sherries. Jan Petterson is a Norwegian who worked for decades at Osborne, and left to take over this gem of a place. I was struck by the fact that he would not pour us samples of his Antique Fino. "I am completely obsessed with flor," he said. "We are very small, and I will not disturb the flor like this. We are entering the season where flor is very delicate and I don't want it to experience any more stress than is necessary." I must say, I admire his dedication to his wines.

The wine in bottle was lovely, but a bit confusing to me. It is an old Fino, like Inocente or Panesa, and it is higher in alcohol (18%?) than any other Fino I can think of, and I felt it just a little bit on the palate. Or was it the power of suggestion? I wish I could drink it again, but none of Fernando de Castilla's wines are imported in the US. I brought home a bottle of the very special Antique Palo Cortado and I would invite you to taste it with me but alas, I already drank it.

Perhaps the highlight of this visit, for me, was tasting Fernando de Castilla's brandies from barrel. We tasted Brandy in its youngest incarnation, throughout the next decade of its life, and then the final product before it is bottled. I actually loved the youngest wine - it reminded me of eau-de-vie in its powerful and delicious fresh fruitiness - it smelled and tasted of ripe pears.

Our Barbadillo visit was also fascinating. First of all, the wine maker is a woman, which is highly unusual in this part of the wine making world.

Her name is Montse Molina and she is originally from Madrid, I believe. So in addition to being a woman, she is also an outsider in Sanlucar, which I imagine must have made it difficult for her in the beginning with the group of men she supervised and collaborated with in making Barbadillo's wines.

We tasted three barrels of Barbadillo's Manzanilla Pasada, each from a different room within one of the Bodegas. These three rooms differed in size, ventilation, and humidity - they produce entirely different wines, in other words. They are eventually blended in order to produce the Manzanilla Pasada that goes into bottle. It was fascinating to taste these three wines in succession, to get a concrete view of the impact of the environment of a Bodega on the barrels of wine it produces. Peter and I took our glasses and blended the three wines in what we thought would be an advantageous way, and it was good. Montse tasted our blend and smiled the way I sometimes smile at my two year old when she is able to get her coat off by herself.

We tasted an old Amontillado and it became instantly clear to me that Amontillado made from Manzanilla is different from Amontillado made from Fino. One is not better than the other, but Manzanilla Amontillado, or at least the few that I've tasted, can have a certain saline and lemon peel brightness that I think is tremendously delicious. These are not easy to find, but worth a special search, if you're into Amontillado. I would suggest that you try Barbadillo's version, which I loved, but it is not imported in the US.

And we tasted the Reliquias. These are very old wines, relics, if you will. They are some of the most expensive and rare Sherries, and Barbadillo literally keeps the room where the Reliquias are served under lock and key. And there was some confusion about the location of the key - several workers were sent scurrying about to search for it. Finally it was located, no one was hurt, and in we went. It would be pointless to try to describe the smell and taste of wines as complex as these, but I can tell you that I have never ever tasted an Amontillado as impossibly light and pungent and balanced and beautiful as this one.

What can I say about visiting La Guita and Valdespino with Eduardo Ojeda? Anything I say will trivialize the actual experience of being there with him, listening to him discuss the wines, the Bodegas, the region. He is a passionate, intelligent, an absolutely gentlemanly and lovely person, a living treasure of the wine making tradition in Jerez and Sanlucar. If you go and visit the region, find him and visit La Guita and Valdespino.

At both La Guita and Valdespino, Eduardo wanted to show us the progression of the wines from their youth to the Solera, ready to be bottled. This was an incredible experience for me, seeing the wine in various stages of its life. At La Guita we tasted a special barrel, barrel No 3 from the 4th criadera that was just lovely - bright, saline, refreshing, intense.

We tasted the barrel that gave us La Bota No 20, and our reaction inspired Cabo, the guy in charge of the Bodega when Eduardo isn't there, to draw off a bottle for us to leave with.

We tasted a hidden barrel of Amontillado, that little one above barrel 17, something that is not bottled. This is one of the great things about visiting a Sherry Bodega - if you are lucky you will get to taste special things, wines that the cellar master cares about but that will never see the inside of a bottle. Again, Amontillado made of Manzanilla wine can be very special, and this was absolutely one of the most memorable wines of the trip for me.

At Valdespino we tasted through many of the 10 criaderas of Inocente, several criaderas of Tio Diego, and and a few other great wines. Inocente is a Fino that comes exclusively from grapes from the Marchenudo Alto vineyard, one of the "Grand Cru" sites of Jerez. Tio Diego is what happens when Inocente becomes an Amontillado - not 30 years later, but very soon after it becomes Amontillado.

What happens after Tio Diego? We walked to the section of the Bodega where a few very special wines age in barrel. There is Viejo CP, a lovely Palo Cortado that originates as Inocente, a wine that is not imported in the US. And finally, there is Cardenal, one of the great wines of Jerez, a very old Palo Cortado of which perhaps 400 half bottles are released each year. The Cardenal solera is fed by Viejo CP. As it was first described to me by Peter, "Even seasoned Sherry buffs in Spain widen their eyes if a bottle of Cardenal is served." We tasted this wine next to Coliseo, a very old Amontillado that originates as a Manzanilla, actually. Both are superb wines of astounding depth and intensity, and also great clarity and articulation, and of seemingly unending length. I calculated 47 minutes on Coliseo, but honestly I just stopped counting at that point. These glorious wines are something like the Richebourg and La Tâche of Sherry, but they can be had for a fraction of the price. I should say they could be, if they were imported to the US. I'm starting to sense a pattern here regarding importation, or lack thereof, of fine Sherry. Are you?


* Patently false. These are wine making tools. And Fernando Hidlago is an upstanding citizen who is well regarded in his community.

Tiled Entryways in Jerez

Southern Spain was ruled by the Moors for over 700 years until the end of the 15th century. There are several cities in Andalusia where one can see magnificent works of Moorish architecture. Jerez is not among them, to my knowledge. But there are traces of the Moorish past in Jerez. I noticed immediately, for example, that the entryways to many residences are beautifully tiled in the Moorish style.

I cannot explain why these captured my attention so vividly, but they did. Maybe it's because they are beautiful. Maybe it's because I am an obsessive person. Whatever the case may be, I want to share some photos of these tiled entryways, because I like them. So yes, there is nothing about food or wine in this post. If that bothers you, have a snack or a small glass of Fino while looking at the photos.

This entryway was tiled.

This one also was tiled.

This one too.

This one is not unusual, in that it was tiled.

At this point, you cannot be surprised about the tiles in this entryway.

What, you thought there'd be no tiles?

Tiled fireplace of old? A baker sells bread through that window.

Here, a tiled entryway.

Tiled entryway with rug.

The designer here chose tiles for the entryway.

This concludes this series. Notice that all of the entryways are tiled.

Visiting a Sherry Bodega

In Burgundy and the Loire Valley, it can be difficult to find the producers you are trying to visit. The houses look like any other houses and often the placards at the entrance are quite small. When you eventually find your way, you visit dark and cold underground caves with beautiful mold covered walls. There is enough room for wine barrels and not much else - visiting is an intimate experience. You taste through the lineup of new wines in barrel, and then perhaps a few bottles from recent vintages, maybe an older bottle if you are lucky and the wine maker feels like sharing a special experience.

Entrance to Bodegas Emilio Hidalgo.

Visiting a Sherry Bodega is quite different. Sherry Bodegas, small and large, tend to be a bit easier to identify from the street.

Spiral staircase, Gonzales Byass.

Bodegas are compounds - there are barrels rooms of course, but also courtyards with lovely plants and trees, and offices and all sorts of other buildings.

Inside Bodegas Fernando de Castilla.

Honestly, the larger Bodegas seemed like walled cities with their own private streets, and what I think may have been medical clinics, schools, and libraries. Okay, maybe not, but it seemed that way to me.

Oloroso barrels at Bodegas Emilio Hidalgo.

Most of the Bodegas we visited keep some barrels in the outside air. There are wines in these barrels - Olorosos, usually, wines that never see flor. They are able to withstand greater variation in temperature than biologically aged wines.

Inside the Valdespino Bodega. It felt as though I had been swallowed by a whale.

Walking into an actual Bodega, a barrel room, can be startling. You step through a door (they are not underground) and into a vast dark room filled with barrels. Light pokes past the edges of frayed wooden screens that don't really cover the windows. The ceilings are very high. The air smells delicious, kind of like yeasty bread dough and toffee. These are old, quiet, beautiful places that inspire great reverence.

Inside the "Cathedral" at Barbadillo where Solear is matured.

You do not taste finished wines in Sherry Bodegas. In Burgundy, for example, when you taste from a barrel you get a pretty good sense of what the wine will be. Sure, the wine you taste will be blended with other barrels of the same wine and it is unfinished in barrel, so you must interpolate a bit to understand what you are tasting. But in a Sherry Bodega you are tasting merely one ingredient of a wine, and at one moment in that ingredient's never-ending life.

"1/70" indicates that this is barrel #1 of 70, in the 10th and youngest criadera.

You begin by tasting from a barrel in a younger criadera, and get a sense of the wine as it begins. Tasting older criaderas, you get a sense of the wine as it matures, and so on. Even when you taste from the solera barrels you are experiencing but one version of the wine, the version that the cellar master wants you to see on that day, not the finished wine. None of these wines that you taste will ever be experienced in a bottle. They are, as Peter says, "photographs of a moment in time." When you emerge from visiting a Bodega, you leave with an understanding (hopefully) of the Bodega and what the wines can be, not so much of the wines as you might purchase them in bottle.

There are amazing, these old Bodegas, and they are an endangered species. I'm grateful that I had the opportunity to see them and to be with them for those few days.

The Changing Sherry Market - Fine Sherry is more than Equipo Navazos

Not really so long ago in Burgundy, négociants dominated the wine market. Growers sold even their finest wines to the négoce who bottled them and that's what was largely available for retail purchase. But as a new generation of growers took over their parents' estates, and as the market expanded for wines made by a specific grower, drinking Burgundy wine is now about finding bottles by the producers and the vineyards that we like. And I doubt that anyone would say that this is a bad thing.

In a way, the opposite is true regarding Sherry. A long time ago, even smaller producers bottled and sold their Sherries and they were available in various markets. Not now. The market for Sherry has been bad enough for long enough that there simply aren't many Bodegas left - maybe 40 in total, and that's including all three cities in the triangle. And of these 40 or so Bodegas, only some bottle wines that are exported and sold in the US market. And of those, many are not distributed all that well, and only some of the wines are available for purchase, never the Bodega's entire lineup.

Eduardo Ojeda pouring Valdespino Cardenal and Coliseo from barrel. These are among the very best of Palo Cortado and Amontillado, respectively, and we cannot buy them in the US.

It is a Spanish version of the négoce that allows us to drink some of the wines made by smaller Sherry Bodegas. Here in the US, if you want to taste the Sherries of Jose Luis Gonzales Obregon, you must buy them in a Lustau bottle. If you want to taste the Sherries of Sánchez Ayala or Fernando de Castilla, you must do so in an Equipo Navazos bottle. This sort of négociant activity is a good thing in the Sherry triangle - there are many great wines made in Jerez, Sanlucar, and Puerto Santa Maria that we would not be able to drink if not for bottlers and shippers such as these.

Jan Petterson of Fernando de Castilla.

For me, it's been a bit strange to wrap my head around. When I first drank an Equipo Navazos wine I had no idea what it actually represented. Eduardo Ojeda and Jesus Barquin of Equipo Navazos have developed relationships with people in Bodegas all over the triangle, and they select special barrels from specific soleras to bottle and sell all over the world (more often than not in Singapore, but that's another story). Many of the people I spoke to in Jerez and Sanlucar are happy that Equipo Navazos is doing what they're doing because Equipo Navazos is generating renewed interest in Sherry as a fine wine.

Equipo Navazos wines are expensive by Sherry standards (and well worth the money), and people snap them up so fast now that it's virtually impossible for retailers to keep them in stock. Would you pay $45 for a bottle of Sánchez Ayala Manzanilla? This is a rhetorical question because we didn't when we could have, and now we can't. But we all eagerly shelled out $45 for Equipo Navazos La Bota de Manzanilla No 22, a Manzanilla from the soleras of Sánchez Ayala.

Jesus Barquin of Equipo Navazos.

This is not a criticism of us, of Sánchez Ayala, of Equipo Navazos, or of anything. I'm just trying to suggest that we should remember, as we (re)discover fine Sherry wines, that there are great producers of fine Sherry, outside of Equipo Navazos.

Fernando Hidalgo, brother of Emilio Hidalgo, pouring Fino Especial La Panesa.

I will keep buying Equipo Navazos wines (when I can find them) and you should buy whatever makes you happy. But in addition, I will also buy Sherries made by producers such as Emilio Hidalgo, El Maestro Sierra, and other Bodegas who bottle their own wine. If you like Sherry but you drink mostly Equipo Navazos wines, you might also consider trying some other wines. It's not all about Equipo Navazos, as great as the wines are. There are other great Sherry wines out there and they are becoming easier to find in the US, probably due in large part to the success of the Equipo Navazos project.

Some of my favorite Finos that are available in the US, for example:

--Valdespino Inocente (and Equipo Navazos bottles wines from this solera too)

--Emilio Hidalgo Fino Especial La Panesa (Crush sent an email about this wine today - definitely something to buy if you haven't already)

--Emilio Hidalgo Fino (delicious, inexpensive, and absurdly hard to find, still)

--El Maestro Sierra Jerez Fino

--Pedro Romero Manzanilla Aurora

--Gutierrez Colosia El Puerto de Santa Maria Juan Sebastian Elcano

--Argüeso Manzanilla de Sanlúcar de Barrameda Manzanilla San León Clásica

Jerez and Sanlucar Tapas

The eating in Jerez and Sanlucar was pretty great. It's all about tapas, small dishes that you order too many of and share with friends. Generally, you go to lunch at about 3:30 and eat a lot of tapas. You finish at something like 5:30. You take break, and then go to dinner at something like 9.

Olives are amazing. Often so lackluster here in the states, olives were truly delicious in Jerez. Stuffed with anchovies and garlic, marinated in a brine that includes the juice of the bitter Seville orange, they are really memorable, and I crave them now.

Then there are the deceptively simple potato tapas. I liked them best with olive oil, Sherry vinegar, and topped with cured fish. Perhaps this dish is the roast chicken of Jerez - easy to make and ubiquitous, but actually very difficult to make perfectly. Judge a chef by the simplest of dishes...

And there is Jamon. No self-respecting establishment would use a slicer to serve Jamon. You can see the striations from the knife on each slice. The fat glistens and is clean and richly flavorful, each bite fragrant and nutty. This is difficult to replicate here in NYC. Many tapas bars display their Jamon right over the bar for all to drool over.

Seafood is fresh and delicious, and typically quite simply (and expertly) fried. Anchovies, sardines, red mullet, tuna. This stuff is actually good for you. Mojama is cured tuna, a special cut. It is creamy in texture and rich in tuna flavor. The Jamon of the sea, if you will. Langoustines and gambas (shrimp) are everywhere. The freshest ones are dropped in salted boiling water for a few moments, just until they are barely cooked, and then put on a plate. That's it.

Here are some pics, and I hope they inspire you to eat something great for lunch or dinner today:
La Moderna, Jerez:

Potatoes in olive oil and Sherry vinegar with fish.

Chicharrones, in this case fried pig belly. By the way, the richest person in southern Spain is the one who makes those cracker tubes. They are EVERYWHERE.

Toro, stewed bull.

Bustling behind the bar.

Taberna der Guerito, Sanlucar:

Excellent olives. My favorites of the trip.

La Bota No 30 is not a bad wine.

Cuttle fish stewed with chick peas and tripe.

Beef stew with french fries.

Casa de Balbino, Sanlucar:

Tortilla de Camarones (fried tiny shrimp tortilla, amazing with cold beer).

Mojama.

Langoustines.

Octopus in olive oil with crisp vegetables - shaved celery?

Bar Juanito, Jerez:

Artichoke hearts in olive oil and herbs, and garlic.

Anchovies with sea salt. Absurd.

Jamon Ibérico, wild mushrooms with langoustines, Inocente. Hard to argue with that.

Bar Navarro, Sanlucar:

Olives.

Tomato salad with onion and tuna.

Scorched Padron peppers with sea salt.

Anchovies. Eat them whole.

A fish they called "little sole."

Red Mullet.

Las Terraces, in Seville:

Jamon. Is there a more appealing way to display a pig's leg? I don't think so.

Jamon and Chorizo Ibérico.

Roast peppers in olive oil, potatoes with cured fish, tuna en adobo, and seafood salad.

Okay, now go meet a friend for lunch.