Gonzalez Byass Sherry/Champagne Tasting

Drinking sherry in a fancy restaurant in historic surroundings is just about as close to my idea of heaven as it can get, and that's what I found myself doing on Friday afternoon.

the venue

The Midland Hotel in Manchester is where Rolls met Royce, and is a beautiful, commanding example of Manchester's Victorian history. Like much of the rest of Manchester, it was rundown over the years, but now it's once again an example of Manchester's new vibrancy and self-confidence. The French restaurant has been reinvented as a modern institution for contemporary cuisine by award-winning chef Simon Rogan, and last year Mr. Cooper's House and Garden opened, designed as a more accessible and less exclusive alternative to the French. It's still a pretty luxurious setting, and sat around a table drinking champagne I felt I could have been in a high-class Parisian restaurant.

the champagne

Gonzalez Byass distribute Deutz champagne in the UK, so we got to taste their wines as an opener. Deutz is an historic champagne house, dating back to 1838. They're known for their vintage wines - the 2006, which we tasted, came top in a recent Decanter tasting, ahead of perhaps more famous names. It was certainly an exceptional wine; fresh and lively, with power and structure from the Pinot Noir (60% of the blend), with complex yet delicate autolytic notes, with a beautiful finish of red apples and cinnamon. We also tasted the William Deutz 2000, which was still incredibly lively despite its age (it was only disgorged last April; Deutz have the welcome practice of putting disgorgement dates on the bottles). Its palate was more mature and developed than the 2006, though, a bit earthy, with mushrooms, bruised apples, and crème brûlée. My favourite wine, though, was the Rosé 2008 - biscuits and toast with delicate red fruits. A subtle, complex wine.

the sherry

This was where the afternoon got truly exciting for me: fifteen sherries, ranging from young unfortified wine to thirty-year-old PX. We started with Mosto Palomino, mosto referring to the unfortified base wine and Palomino the most important sherry grape. Quite how such an uninspiring wine can develop into a drink as wonderful and complex as sherry is difficult to understand, but it's all about the fortification, ageing, and blending. The mosto is taken from the first pressing of the grapes; delicate juice is classified as suitable for fino, more robust juice for oloroso. This mosto was quite full on, smelling and tasting of a roomful of apples, and was probably destined for an oloroso.

sherry rainbow

We then moved on to Sobretablas Fino, a wine still developing into a fino. It was only a few months old, fortified straight after fermentation, not yet transferred to oak barrels, and still in an early stage of development, with rough, aggressive, volatile flavours. This wine would turn into Tío Pepe, which we sampled next. It was extraordinary to trace the gestation of the fino, from a simple base wine, to a volatile young wine, to one of the greatest drinks in the world: fresh and delicate, yet full and mature, with flavours of apples, wood, nuts, yeast, and chalk, I don't think there's a drink I fall in love in with so easily as a fino.

Tío Pepe's probably the most famous fino. The firm now known as Gonzalez Byass was established by a banker back in the day when there was more money to be made from sherry than banking. Although he knew about money, Señor Gonzalez knew nothing about sherry and enlisted the help of his uncle, Pepe, who promised to help but only if they made a pale, dry, and deeply unfashionable style of sherry. That drink's still called Tío Pepe. Gonzalez Byass's rep, Paul, who guided us through the tasting was proud of the drink and rightly adamant about how it should be drunk: chilled, in a white wine glass, and with food. 

The structured tasting continued with Viña AB Amontillado, a style which began life as a fino but is refortified to kill off the flor, and then is aged for a further period of time to develop oxidative qualities: in this case, the wine was aged under flor for four years, followed by a further six years of oxidative ageing. I loved this wine: it still had the woody delicacy of the fino, but with creamy apples, caramel, and vanilla.

The next wine was, at thirty years, a very old amontillado. Del Duque was described as being like an antique shop and was really leathery - perhaps too much so. We were able to compare this to Cuatro Palmas, a special blend of four different unfiltered wines of up to forty-five years of age. This was creamier, richer, not as drying, and more complex. Unfortunately, there's only enough wine left for two years' worth of bottling.

We then returned to the base wine and followed a different tasting path. The mosto we tasted was probably ready to become an oloroso, and we began again with the Sobretablas Oloroso, which was a lot more stable than its fino equivalent and was already tasting of raisins - it had begun oxidising from the moment of fortification. This was followed by Alfonso Oloroso, an eight-year-old wine which was probably a little too young, though it had nice orange peel and nutty flavours.

Perhaps the best wine of the tasting was the Leonor Palo Cortado. This had the unusual characteristics of a palo cortado - the delicacy of a fino and the depth of an oloroso - resulting in a unique profile of poached pears and dried fruits.

It was then that we moved on to the other important sherry grape, Pedro Ximénez, of which there was 25% in the Solera 1847. There was a little bit of syrupy treacle sweetness from the Pedro Ximénez, but it was balanced by the dry oloroso's nuttiness and dried fruits - a fresh, complex wine. The Apostoles Palo Cortado was another great example of palo cortado's unique personality, and I can see why it's a style that aficionados consider to be the greatest expression of sherry. This is a thirty-year-old wine, an oloroso and PX (15%) blended together when they were twelve. Rich fudge notes, with apricots - a great, if unexpected, combination.

We finished with the truly sweet stuff. The Matusalem Oloroso Dulce had not only a mahogany appearance but aroma, with a rich bitterness from the oloroso and dried fruits from the PX. Nectar PX was a young and not especially complex wine, dominated by raisins, currants, and sultanas. The final wine, Noe PX, was PX at its most intense and craziest: 450g/L of residual sugar, with intense, chewy flavours of raisins, currants, figs, and Christmas pudding. This is a great after-dinner wine - and one that's been used in wine and cigar tastings.

Gonzalez Byass are determined to make sherry fashionable again. With wines like these, I really hope they succeed.

Thanks, uncle Pepe

Sherry - for life, not just for Christmas

Like German wines and Beaujolais, the sherry industry boomed in the 1970s and 80s and its reputation has never recovered since. It's too often seen as sweet and to be drunk at Christmas - and it's probably the same bottle that's used each year before it finally runs out ten years later. I hope things are changing. The UK is the traditional market for fortified wines and when I started working at hangingditch last year I was pleased to see how many people came in asking for sherry and how knowledgeable they were about the different styles. It's time more people knew just how good sherry is.

So why drink sherry?

Sherry comes in a vast array of styles, which can be understandably bewildering, but there's likely to be a sherry out there which suits your tastes. This also means sherry goes with lots of different foods; from a bowl of salted nuts to vanilla ice cream, there'll be a sherry as a perfect accompaniment. So, different styles for different tastes and different foods, and, what's more, it always presents incredibly good value.

What is sherry?

To be called sherry in the EU, the drink has to come from the area around Jerez in Andalucia. Sherry is made from white wine which is fortified with a brandy spirit after fermentation. This means that sherry is a naturally dry wine; unlike port, whose sweetness comes from fortifying the base wine during fermentation, sweetness in sherry comes from adding a sweet liquid to the wine (there's one exception to this, see Pedro Ximénez below). Sherry is nearly always a blend of different years, aged in large oak barrels where exposure to air is all important. This interaction with oxygen is where the characteristic sherry aroma comes from.

Sherries to try

Sanchez Romate Fino Perdido - a fino that's been aged much longer than standard, simply because the winemakers forgot about the wine. This wine is nutty, yeasty, and bready; wonderful depth of flavour, yet delicate. Widely available at less than £15 a bottle - a seriously good wine at a seriously great price.

Valdespino Manzanilla Deliciosa - Valdespino have been making wine for 700 years and are one of the area's best producers. This single-vineyard manzanilla is sensational - bready, salty, nutty, spicy, with apple peel. Another steal at £12.50 a bottle from hangingditch.

Osborne Venerable Pedro Ximénez - ebony black in colour, intensely sweet, flavours of treacle and toffee, this will turn plain vanilla ice cream into one of the most decadent meals of your life. £26 from the Wine Society.
 

The different types of sherry

Although it can be confusing, knowing about the different styles of sherry will help you pick the right sherry for the right occasion. Here's a table to sort out the different levels of sweetness and oxidisation in sherries:

fino (15.5%) - the sherry that defies stereotypes of sherry as a sweet, rich wine to be drunk with trifle. A fino is golden in colour, bone dry, best drunk chilled, and perfect as a summer apertif. It's generally 15.5% ABV, but delicate and fragrant. It's aged for a relatively short time and is designed to be drunk young (always try and finish the bottle off the night you open it!). Food pairing: cured ham or hard cheese.

manzanilla (15.5%) -  made in the same way as fino, but it has to come from the seaside town of Sanlucar de Barrameda. The proximity to the sea gives manzanilla a fresh, salty character. Food pairing: seafood, particularly langostinos.

amontillado (17%) - is exposed to air much more than a fino, meaning that the oxygen in the atmosphere turns the drink a rusty brown colour, also giving the wine a nutty character. Food pairing: goat's cheese salad.

oloroso (17-20%) - whereas finos and amontillados are initially protected from oxygen by the layer of yeast that forms on top of the wine (called flor), an oloroso is exposed to oxygen throughout its maturation, which means that an oloroso is always a rich, dark brown colour - the darker it is, the older the wine. Expect caramel and nutty flavours. Food pairing: red meat or game; get out the artichokes and asparagus too, because, unlike a red wine, an oloroso will stand up to their flavours. 

palo cortado (17-22%) - the most unusual of sherries, in that it's a mixture of amontillado and oloroso, undergoing one or more refortifications. It's fuller bodied that an amontillado, but less heavy than an oloroso - and the style will differ according to the producer. Food pairing: something Asian; sherry is one of the few wines that won't be overpowered by spicy food and the robust yet delicate nature of palo cortado is ideal.

Pedro Ximénez (PX) (17-22%) - one of the maddest drinks there is, especially if it's gone through a long ageing process. Its colour is dark, sometimes to the point of jet black, its flavours intensely sweet, which comes from drying the grapes to the point of being like raisins. One of the best dessert wines, as it can stand up to any food no matter how sweet. Food pairing: pour a tablespoon of PX over vanilla ice cream, giving the ice cream rich toffee and treacle flavours. So indulgent and decadent, and so fantastic!

Amontillados and olorosos are sometimes sweetened, either by adding unfermented grape juice or PX to the wine. A sweet oloroso is also called Cream Sherry. Food pairing: a chocolate- or fruit-based dessert.