Sherry
Our tasting group at work did a special night on sherry (aka xeres or jeres) from Spain. We compared four samples, three were dry sherries at different ages, one was an ultrasweet sherry. Although I'm not an authority on sherry let me summarize what I do know. Sherry uses a system called "solera" for combining different ages of grape juice. Stacks and rows of barrels will include the youngest wine on top and the very oldest at the far bottom. Some of each row will be transferred into the next row, and the next row into the next, and the oldest sherry of all has a small portion transferred to the newest row. In the newest sections of the process a yeast forms in each barrel and usually hardens into a crust which they call the "flor" (as in flower). It is a combination of the solera mixing and the flor which gives sherry its unique flavors. In fact the main grape used, Palomino, is generally described as a bland grape, makes lame dry wine in the other traditional methods, and has never done well outside of Spain. The blandness of Palomino is part of why it's ideal for sherry because it allows the solera and flor to bring out their flavors. The majority of sherries are actually dry and although the older versions appear to have sweetened it's actually illusory because sugar testing of those samples will indeed reveal them to be dry wines. The exception is if they deliberately add a sweet grape to it in which case the word "Cream" is added to the sherry's name, OR if the sherry is entirely made out of a sweet grape (like Pedro Ximenez) in which case it may be named for the grape instead. Getting back to the dries, the newest sherry is called "Fino", a touch older will yield "Manzanilla", and both these styles are quite bold and wooly, "bracing" is a good way to describe them. If they keep the wine in the system 5 years the flor dies off, the color deepens a little, and the flavor mellows some, and that gives you "Amontillado". Then if you keep it in the system 10 or more years it becomes even darker, milder, and richer and you have "Oloroso". And note the age of the sherry is an approximation of average based on the various quantities of other ages mixed into it. A 10 year sherry has both some new sherry and 20 or 30+ year sherries in it but on average they calculate 10 years. Now for the samples we tried:
Gonzalez Byass, Tio Pepe, Extra Dry Palomino Fino (Spain) - I tried this at home more than a year ago, when I had a less sophisticated palette, I hated it, threw the bottle out, and ranked it a 1 for never try it again. This time around my eyes were open more. Although this contains no retsina it in fact reminded me and several others in our group of a Greek retsina. There is a sort of petro-aromatic or resin-aromatic quality to it. Several in our group actually preferred it from all the sherries because they don't like the sweet qualities of the others. So this time around I will elevate the score considerably. 5 out of 10, because it clearly is "average" for a "Fino" style sherry (and in fact this brand is the best seller) but it still isn't favored enough by me to score it any higher.
Lustau, Dry Amontillado Los Arcos Sherry, Solera Reserva (Spain) - This is the second amontillado I've tried this year and although this sample definitely lives up to the dryness and nuttiness desired I actually thought it was less rich and less interesting than the Sandeman Character Amontillado I previously reviewed. Also several in our work tasting group outright hated this sample. I still know Lustau is a quality brand but it didn't get an edge this time. 5 out of 10 for lower average.
Osborne, Oloroso Medium Sherry, 10RF (Spain) - Although priced near $20 like the other quality sherries this is the only sample I've seen with a screw cap instead of the reusable cork style. The contents were fine enough, good complex flavor, mellow, and in fact most in our work tasting group favored this over the other dry sherries. Osborne did OK, although I suspect there are much better Oloroso's out there which would handily beat it. Time will tell. Anyway 6 out of 10 for upper average.
Barbadillo, La Cilla, Pedro Ximenez (Spain) - I gave a raving review to this a long time ago and it's still well deserved. This sweet wine is pure raisin heaven (and in fact it's made from Pedro Ximenez sun dried raisins). Aged more than 20 years, "the barn" (La Cilla) is a special ramped up sweet wine which makes your fingers and lips sticky and almost crystalizes in your mouth. Great on ice cream by the way. My score for this remains a whopping 10. Enjoy it in moderation though, a little bit will do you.
