WINE: Sherry Without Shame It’s Thursday night—party night—and you and your friends spill in and out of local watering holes, laughing, dancing, and checking out the opposite sex. At barely midnight — or, as it’s known in a town where the bars empty late, halftime—you manage to catch the eye of someone who has managed to evade your gaze the past several decades. You approach this special person, asking if he or she would like to share a friendly drink. No, this isn’t Chippewa Street, and you’re not offering to buy your new fantasy a Jagermeister. It’s three thousand miles east, and you’re in Andalusia, hard by the Bay of Cadiz in Southern Spain, where getting down is fueled by that native offering of the gods called Sherry. OK, I see the smirks. Sherry? Maybe if your 104-year-old great uncle is coming for a visit. Maybe if Stephen Foster is your idea of a headbanger. Maybe if you normally mainline Metamucil. Maybe if your maiden aunt left you a bulky cask of Amontillado in her will. Drink Sherry? As Poe's hapless victim in "A Cask of Amontillado" cried, "For the love of God, Montressor!" But these preconceived notions are about as passé as this Spanish nectar itself seems to be. Sherry may be out of style, confusing, and usually served—if at all—at the wrong temperature from a bottle that’s been open since Margaret Rutherford was a dish, but it is also, sip for a sip, one of the world’s most complex, finely crafted wines as well as perhaps its most astonishing value. Considering the hip image projected by Spanish culture, fashion, food, and red wine, Sherry’s poised for a major comeback. Here’s how to get ahead of the curve. Sherry styles Sherry can be bone-dry or outrageously sweet, but, as a fortified wine, it’s always at least 15% alcohol. Although delicious on its own, it has, depending on the style, an enormous range of flexibility with food. The finest and driest Sherries are labeled either Fino or Manzanilla. While it’s hard even for experts to tell them apart, Finos, from the inland town of Jerez, are slightly bolder, with peachy fruit and mellow complexity. Manzanillas, from the port of Sanlécar de Barrameda, are usually more delicate and prized for their tangy, salty hint of the ocean. Drink both very cold and very young. Finos and Manzanillas are designed to accompany tapas, so it’s no wonder they beautifully complement a wide range of spicy, herby, garlicky, salty appetizers, including olives, ham, anchovies, cheese, raw seafood, sushi, and soups. Delicious Finos include Lustau’s Jarana, the well-known Tio Pepe from Gonzalez Bypass, and my personal favorites, Domecq’s La Ina and Valdespino’s Inocente. Manzanillas are produced by all major Sherry bodegas, but Hidalgo’s mind-blowing La Gitana is hands down the finest. Not to put too fine a point on this, but Hidalgo La Gitana Manzanilla is the greatest cocktail party wine in the world. Any of these should be available for less than $15, a fabulous bargain given their complexity and versatility. When Fino grows up, it wants to be Amontillado, the centerpiece of Edgar Allen Poe’s classic story. Amontillado is Fino that has been aged in barrels for a decade or more, taking on a warm, golden richness redolent of walnuts or pecans. More robust than Finos, Amontillados—meant to be served cool, but not chilled—can be dry or lightly sweetened, and are wonderful with cream soups, roasts, hot spicy foods, and anything with nuts. Excellent examples include Lustau’s Los Arcos and Hidalgo’s Napoleon, both under $12. Domecq makes a bone-dry example catchily named 51-1a and a slighter sweeter version called Medium-Dry; both are well worth checking out. Ratchet Amontillado up a notch and you end up with rich, hedonistic Oloroso, often a wine of world-class complexity. One sip will produce a raisin, walnut, and cinnamon party in your mouth. The dry version, Oloroso Seco, is somewhat of an acquired taste, but the sweetened versions—usually called "cream sherry"—are among the world’s greatest sweet wines. Barbadillo’s Full Rich Cream Sherry is lovely, as is Lustau’s luscious, lightly sweetened Rich Old Oloroso. Both, though, pale before Lustau’s dark golden Deluxe Cream Sherry "Capataz Andres," perhaps the greatest of all cream Sherries, and a screaming bargain for about $12 per bottle. This delight makes the ubiquitous Harvey’s Bristol Cream seem like the milk left over from a bowl of Cap’n Crunch. If even cream sherry is too dry for you—and if you’ve got a forgiving dentist—don’t miss the sweetest Sherries of all, Pedro-Ximenez and Moscatel. Moscatel is a world-class match for chocolate. My favorite at less than $20 per bottle is Lustau’s Moscatel Superior Emilin, rich with the scent of dates, figs, and caramel. According to legend, a German soldier named Pieter Siemens strolled into an Andalusian village in the middle-ages with a vine cutting he claimed was the fabled German Riesling. It was not, of course, Riesling, but, whatever its lineage, it ended up being named after the soldier—Pedro-Ximenez in Spanish (PX for short), a nuclear explosion disguised as a grape. The PX grape produces enormous natural sugar, but, as part of the "too much is just enough" school of winemaking, the grapes are often laid out on mats in the sun after harvesting to concentrate those sugars even further. Sometimes, PX ends up with a sugar content of 500 grams per liter (1,000 grams per liter of sugar is a bag of sugar). A good deal of PX is blended with old Oloroso to make cream sherry, but for the ultimate sugar rush, there’s nothing quite like pure PX, as much a syrup as a wine and a taste which will fill every nook and cranny of your mouth. It’s soft, velvety, black as night, and rich as Croesus. A rush in a bottle if there ever was one. In Spain they pour it over ice cream. You can pour it over whatever—or whomever—you want. Here’s an all-star line-up: Valdespino’s Argueso: Buttery, nutty, caramel flavors explode in your mouth with each sip. (Under $20) Lustau’s San Emilio: Massive quantities of dried fruits, coffee, and chocolate. A wine of unbelievable concentration: serve it from an eyedropper. (Under $20) Domecq’s Venerable: Aromas and flavors of date, coffee, chocolate; the texture of molasses. You’ll taste this for several minutes after you swallow. (About $40) -Mark Criden, a non-profit executive, is the former chair of the Buffalo Branch of the IWFS. You can reach him at mcriden@yahoo.com. SUBSCRIBE NOW Back to the Table of Contents Back to Top