Sherry – an overlooked gem

Its difficult to understand. One of the worlds greatest and interesting wine styles. Enigmatic and individual. Often rare and made with painstaking attention to detail, only possible in a tiny part of the world. Well known but rarely talked about.

The mention of it to some produces the same response as mentioning oysters.

To others a casual “I’m not really keen on it“.

I wonder why?

Certainly the styles differ so much that if someone who doesn’t like dry wines has a fino or a manzanilla they might be put off. Likewise a PX to a desert wine phobe will not strike a chord.

Then there is fortification and oxydation. Both are a far cry from modern “clean” yet bland flavours in commercial wine manufacture.

Interestingly the cult of natural wines has caught the imagination of the hipster foodie crowd yet sherry is still labelled old fashioned.

Perhaps this is a good thing and not have a fleeting trend of sherry bars open and then close although it would be great to be able to order a copita of this fantastic wine served perfectly in more places.

if you want to know more here asre the borad Sherry styles. I will cover more in following pages:

• Manzanilla
• Fino
• PaloCortado
• Amontillado
• Oloroso
• Pedro Ximenez (PX)