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JR's notes:

WINE magazine conducts one or more blind tastings every month and this article is a report on a tasting held in the summer of 1997. I was asked to pull together the opinions of the tasters, and this article appeared in August, 1997. You can see more about WINE magazine on their website: www.wilmington.co.uk

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PREMIUM DRY SHERRY - tasting report

John Radford is

ASSUMING THE MISSIONARY POSITION

Sometimes, pulling together the tasting notes of a dozen people can be something of a challenge. How do you reconcile the view of a distinguished MW that a wine has "excellent structure and a perfect balance of fruit and tannins" with that of a senior member of the trade who remarks that the same wine is "heavily oxidised and past its best"?

In this case, however, the problem is precisely the opposite. There can hardly have been a tasting for this magazine in which every single one of those taking part has expressed the same opinion. I quote Robert Dale (with whom I heartily concur): '...Sherry is surely (potentially) the finest and most versatile and most underrated wine in the world'. His choice of words is, perhaps more flambuoyant than some of the others but the sentiment is the same: if you're prepared to pay more than a fiver for a bottle of Sherry you can get a wine of such style, grace, maturity and character that would make 'em jealous from the Napa Valley to New Zealand - at half the price. To be fair there was one joker in the pack: DP 117 Seppeltsfield Show Palomino from Australia, which came in at a very creditable 25th but, if anything, it was the exception which proved the rule that (to quote a famous advertising strapline) Real Sherry Comes Only From Spain. This leads on to everybody's seco nd comment, which is... "So how come they don't sell?" We'll address that issue in a moment.

First - the wines: 44 of them, and not a duffer in the pack. Eleven scored 90-plus, 31 were in the 80-89 bracket and the remaining two (at a very respectable 78 and 79) were Finos which, if anything, suffered from a lack of freshness rather than any real fault in the wine itself.

Interestingly enough, although most of the tasters thought the Finos in general were outstanding, none made the top eleven, which points up the peculiar difficulty of any Sherry tasting. The old Amontillados and Olorosos are so powerful on the nose and such a holistic experience on the palate that their lighter, drier, crisper neighbours grow pale by comparison. Konstantinos Lazarakis remarked "...I will not be surprised if excellent Manzanillas [and Finos] are downgraded..." which is precisely what happened - if you count Valdespino's Inocente at 89 and Lustau's Almacenista at 88 as 'downgraded'. No matter, however: the acclaim was universal. Here are a few opinions: "Almost without exception the tasting shows quality Sherry to be right up there with the world's greatest wines."; "Overall, quality excellent" (Tim Stanley-Clark); "...plenty of exciting flavours to savour..." ; "These are wines which are unafraid to be themselves..." (Dave Broom); "E very subsection of this tasting... Had a star performer"; "...extremely high average quality, demonstrating the consistency and value-for-money premium Sherry represents"; "Most of the wines showed complexity, diversity and what a splendid match they can be throughout any meal." (Lilyane Weston)... Not everyone was quite so enthusiastic, but the general consensus was that here be undiscovered treasures at silly prices with a versatility beyond the average wine-lover's experience.

Which brings us back to 'why?' Or, rather, 'Why not?': why don't wines of this class and value sell? John Vaughan-Hughes, the now-retired 'Godfather of Sherry' who masterminded Domecq's production of two million cases a year during the boom-time suggests "it would be very wrong to direct WINE readers too enthusiastically towards them [old Amontillado and Oloroso wines]. They are an acquired taste and most people are frightened by them at first." He goes on to say that, since wine of this character and venerability is in short supply anyway, it's unlikely that the Sherry trade will be restored to anything like the style to which it had become accustomed by wines such as these. This may or may not be true (it would be a brave man who would dare disagree with J.V-H) but the wider reason for Sherry's Cinderella status at the moment seems to have more to do with the past than the present. Those awful bottles of sweet brown sticky-stuff carefully priced down to something-and-99 pence, which dominated the market before the export-crash of 1980, probably did more harm to the long-term future of the business than anything else, as a new generation of wine-drinkers toyed with fruit-up-front examples from the New World and 'TEC' examples from the Old. Robert Dale recommends that "Sherry should shake off the tawdry, cobwebbed side of its image and, at the same time, get rid of Auntie Maud and the Vicar." which just about sums up the general perception that Sherry seems to have amongst most people. Robert Boutflower throws his metaphoric hands up in despair: "What a shame that wine consumerism is driven by a generation of drinkers brought up on Ribena..." Hmm, well, yes, but...

...We were all there - trade, press, pundits, painters and the other kind of artist. Most of us rave about Sherry now and again (in my own case, really quite often) but still the market struggles to advance at a snail's pace. The truth certainly seems to be that if you can get people to try a range of good Sherries they will become enthusiasts in turn - but in a market awash with £2.99 Bozgrovian Chardonnay and £4.99 Stetson's Harbor Premium Harvest Zinfandel, who's going to pay six quid to try a wine which most people associate with ancient relatives or deeply-dull, warm, oxidised sticky- stuff served out of half-full dust-encrusted bottles into singularly inappropriate glasses on the top shelf of the bar-back down at the pub?

No, of course they don't know what they're missing. It would be a charitable act on the part of all concerned to introduce a friend to the delights of Sherry... But this begs a further question: How?

Lilyane Weston, perhaps, puts her finger on it by talking about how well Sherry goes with food. We may forget that Jerezano restaurants excel at menus which marry splendidly with the wines - and I'm not just talking about those yeasty-fresh, silky-soft, bone-dry Manzanillas with a plate of shellfish, but something a little more robust - a Manzanilla-Pasada or Fino-Amontillado, perhaps - with heftier fish dishes, and a dry Oloroso or younger dry Amontillado with red meat - especially when the meat is served in a sauce made from the same wine... And, of course, the great sweetened Olorosos are pudding-wines which make the ubiquitous Muscat de Beaumes-de-Venise seem one-dimensional.

In the meantime, the enthusiasts continue to carry the torch. Several of those present found this tasting unique in their experience: "I have never been so challenged in trying to convey all the different complexities of the top wines: all in all, quite superb" (Caspar Auchtellonie); "The most enjoyable WINE tasting I've been to..."; "Great tasting - but I think we all knew it would be."; "A lovely tasting - thanks for the invite." (Albie McMahon); "These are wines to get emotional about."; and the ineradicable Robert Dale: "The wines... Are all about that magic triangle (Jerez-Puerto de Santa María-Sanlúcar) And the wonderful people involved in making them. ¡Viva! ¡Viva!"

On this showing, good Sherry is not short of aficionados willing to take up the missionary position on its behalf and, as for me...

...Dearly beloved we are gathered here, glass in hand...

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