Sherry Primer with Gerry Dawes - Bodegas Hidalgo La Gitana Part Two Amontillados Olorosos Creams

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Sherry Primer with Gerry Dawes - Bodegas Hidalgo La Gitana Part Two Amontillados Olorosos Creams from Gerry Dawes on Vimeo.

 Now retired Javier Hidalgo pouring old Oloroso from barrels at Bodegas Hidalgo La Gitana in Sanlúcar de Barrameda.
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 About Gerry Dawes

 Gerry Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava in 2004, was awarded the CineGourLand “Cinéfilos y Gourmets” (Cinephiles & Gourmets) prize in 2009 in Getxo (Vizcaya) and received the 2009 Association of Food Journalists Second Prize for Best Food Feature in a Magazine for his Food Arts article, a retrospective piece about Catalan star chef, Ferran Adrià. 

In December, 2009, Dawes was awarded the Food Arts Silver Spoon Award in a profile written by José Andrés. 

". . .That we were the first to introduce American readers to Ferran Adrià in 1997 and have ever since continued to bring you a blow-by-blow narrative of Spain's riveting ferment is chiefly due to our Spanish correspondent, Gerry "Mr. Spain" Dawes, the messianic wine and food journalist raised in Southern Illinois and possessor of a self-accumulated doctorate in the Spanish table. Gerry once again brings us up to the very minute. . ." - - Michael & Ariane Batterberry, Editor-in-Chief/Publisher and Founding Editor/Publisher, Food Arts, October 2009. 
 

Pilot for a reality television series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.
 

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Customized Culinary, Wine & Cultural Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain  

Gerry Dawes can be reached at  gerrydawes@gmail.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@spanishartisanwine.com

New Sherry Book by Peter Liem & Jesus Barquin Endorsement Quote by Gerry Dawes

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The classic family of Sherry-style wines, which includes Manzanilla and Montilla, is incredibly multi-faceted. Chilled dry, finos, manzanillas and amontillados are exceptional companions to shellfish, tapas and sushi; amontillados and olorosos can be a stunning accompaniment to cheeses and dishes with mushrooms or red peppers and the dessert sherries pair splendidly with everything from foie gras to fruit tarts to espresso or cappuccino. Likewise, this versatility and rainbow of flavors is indispensable in cooking; a splash of sherry can make a dish taste unique. The range of more than half a dozen different basic styles, the spectrum of hues, aromas and flavors in these wines, their utility with food and the fact that many of these marvelous wine jewels are downright inexpensive should make Sherry a popular wine indeed.  

However, there has often been a dearth of reliable information about these wonderful wines, so I am delighted to say that wine writer Peter Liem and Spanish Sherry expert Jesús Barquín have teamed up to create Sherry, Manzanilla & Montilla:  A Guide to the Traditional Wines of Andalucía, a well researched book that should be an indispensable addition to the library of any wine aficionado, wine professional, chef or restaurateur.  – Gerry Dawes, Spanish National Gastronomy Prize and Founder of The Spanish Artisan Wine Group

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com

Sherry’s Image Gets a Makeover

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To meet the challenge of making their classical fortified wines attractive to an increasingly younger demographic group that is much more in tune to sexy new age table wines, sherry producers, while almost always quite hospitable and charming to visitors, have had to reconsider the aristocratic, often arrogant image that they projected to the world and wrestle with the significant problem of putting a new face on the stodgy image of their wines. In today’s market, classicism seems anachronistic to many consumers, especially with the new wave wine crowd that has emerged in the past decade.

Javier Hidalgo believes that sherry’s old-fashioned image was created because the sherry producers have been making wines specifically for export markets and he disagrees with this approach. Hidalgo says, “These sherries are very different from the kind of sherries we drink in Spain. I think we were wrong to export product that were not of the type we consume in Spain.”

Javier Hidalgo drinking his Bodegas Hidalgo Napoleon Amontillado.

Photo by Gerry Dawes©2010 / Contact gerrydawes@aol.com

Stephen Olson (aka The Wine Geek), a New York-based wine professional and drinks consultant, who was contracted by the Commercial Office of Spain to promote several high-profile brands and to find ways to make new converts to joys of drinking good sherry, also admits that overcoming sherry’s “stodgy” image is a formidable task.

Olson also knows that the chances are slim that Americans will learn to love sherry if they are introduced to it in most American bars and restaurants, the majority of which offer a couple of standard brands in bottle long since opened and kept unrefrigerated behind the bar. Olson says, “Most bartenders don’t know what sherry is, have never been taught how sherries sound be served, and they don’t have the proper glasses for it.”

There are signs though that sherries are not condemned forever to conjure up images of antiquated “dinosaur” wines favored by elitist wine aficionados (duty bound to cover all the classical wine bases) or of cooking sherry consigned to the back of a cupboard and eventually pilfered by puberal grandkids foraging for something naughty to drink or of sweet wines with English names that are drunk on the rocks.

Steve Olson conducts sherry seminars for consumers, but also for sommeliers, chefs, bartendars, and restaurant staffs. He says wine and food professionals quickly become converts once they have been taught about sherries and get a chance to taste them served properly (finos and manzanillas, and some amontillados chilled; palo cortados, olorosos, Pedro Ximénez, creams and dessert sherries cool) in a tulip-shaped sherry glass or small tulip-shaped wine glass. “Many professionals who are served these wines in a good glass become sherry aficionados,” Olson says. “If you pour them a fresh manzanilla, fino or amontillado and serve a bite of food with it, they love it.”

Olson likes to point to number of success stories in top-end American restaurants. At Ilo in New York, the highly-regarded chef Rick Lakonnen liked sherries so much with some of his dishes that he now offers 8 to 10 sherries by the glass. Joseph Scalice, co-owner and wine director of March, which has been one of Manhattan’s top dining establishments for more that a decade, has long been a sherry lover and even has his own selections under the Dios Baco label. Rob Bigelow, the Master Sommelier who runs the wine programs at Il Circo and Le Cirque in Las Vegas, also offers a number of sherries by the glass and sommelier Jorge Liloy of Nuevo Latino restaurant Patria in New York has a list of 25 to 30 sherries by the glass.

Max McCalman—author of The Cheese Table, mâitre fromager at New York’s Picholine and Artisanal, and one of America’s top cheese gurus—often pairs sherries with some of the 225 cheeses he offers in the two restaurants. “Most dry sherries, because of their crispness, acidity, and pungency are excellent foils for cheeses. Stronger, more assertive, full-flavored palo cortados, olorosos, Pedro Ximénez and creams are fine companions to powerful flavors of aged and blue cheeses.”

Olson also points out that dry manzanilla, fino, and amontillado sherries have a particular afinity for seafood dishes, especially shellfish, which is not surprising since they are often the wines of preference with Spain’s superb crustaceans, which are some of the best in the world.

Olson also points out that “One of the classic matches for sherries, especially amontillados, is soup.” Many restaurants that offer black bean soup either lace it with sherry or offer a glass alongside, but dry sherries are also excellent partners to seafood soups and consommes and the “brown” sherries such as lightly sweetened amontillados and olorosos are perfect foils for thick autumn and winter soups, chowders, etc.

There are signs that a foundation is being laid for turning a new generation on to sherries. The ubiquitous Spanish habit of having tapas with a drink - - call it hors d’ouevres noshing - - is growing in popularity in the United States and tapas bars are popping up like mushrooms. Most, if not all of them, offer a range of sherries by the glass. A recent survey showed that there are now more than fifty Spanish restaurants serving tapas in Manhattan alone. That doesn’t include dozens more in the surrounding burroughs and in nearby communties in New Jersey and Connecticut, nor the Latino cuisine restaurants that serve tapas and the scores of non-Spanish restaurants that now offer a selection of small dishes and call them tapas.

One of the most pleasant surprises Steve Olson encountered in finding food matches for sherry is its afinity for Asian food, especially Japanese food. Sushi Samba in New York’s Flatiron district matches dry sherries with sushi and sashimi.

Sherry’s staid image is getting a makeover.

Vinoble: "Noble" Dessert & Fortified Wines Fair in Jerez de la Frontera, the Sherry Capital

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Jerez de la Frontera, Andalucía, Spain
Capital of Sherry Country
May 28-31, 2006.

All photographs by GerryDawes ©2006.

The Vinoble International Noble Wines Exhibition, held every two years at the end of May in Jerez de la Frontera, is the only wine fair dedicated exclusively to fortified, dessert, and naturally produced sweet wines.

Jardines (gardens) of the Alcazar de Jerez.

The setting for Vinoble is Jerez’s beautifully renovated 12th-century Arabic Alcazar fortress, which dates from the Almohade epoch during the Moorish occupation of Spain. The site is spectacular with wine tasting stands occupying the gardens of the Alcazar, wines tastings such as a Château D'Yquem retrospective and a palo cortado Sherries presentation were held in the complex's former mezquita (mosque) and tasting pavilions in the Renaissance Palace of Villavicencio, which was built within the walls of the fortress in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Wine tasting stands occupying the gardens of the Alcazar during Vinoble.

 Tasting wines in a formerly Muslim fortress and mosque is not as ironic and iconoclastic as it seems, since the Arabs introduced al-quol (alcohol), during many periods wine growing in Moorish Al-Andaluz was tolerated and Andalucian Moorish poets wrote verse celebrating the virtues of wine.

Tasting Wines in the Mezquita (Mosque)

More than 100 noble wine producing areas for from fortified and sweet wines from around the world show their best labels at Vinoble. Represented were late harvest, botrytisized, natural sweet wines, muscatels, and so on from Argentina, noble rot wines from Australia, Austrian "fine" rot sweet wines from Kremstal, Neusiedlersee and Neusiedlersee-Hügelland, Canadian ice wines from Ontario, Chilean muscatels and late vintage semillon-sauvignons and riesling-gewürztraminers and a plethora of French wines from Sauternes, Barsac, Alsace, Languedoc-Roussillon, Loire, Mombazillac, Pacherenc, Gaillac, Jurançon, Sainte Croix du Mont, Loupiac and Bergerac.

Germany was represented by late harvest sweet wines--Ausleses, Beerenausleses, Trockenbeerenausleses and Eisweins from the Rhine and Mosel. Greece showed wines from Samos, Santorini, Patras, Macedonia and Crete; Hungary, their legendary Tokays; Italy by vin santo, passito and moscato; and Portugal by Ports, muscatels from Setúbal and wines from Madeira.

Even Japan with noble rot, sweet and fortified wines and sake; New Zealand with late harvests Rieslings and Gewürztraminers; and Slovenia with sweet wines made from Riesling, Sauvignon, Chardonnay and Moscato were represented along with South African muscatels, late harvest and botrytisized wines; Swiss late harvest wines from Valais; Urugayan late harvest Rieslings and Gewürztraminers and dessert wines from California.

Tasting Sherries with Javier Hidalgo at the Bodegas Hidalgo stand at Vinoble.

But, as might be expected it was the host country, Spain, which showed the most extensive variety of high quality sweet and fortified wines. Local Sherry bodegas showed a broad range of high quality fortified wines--finos, manzanillas, olorosos, amontillados, creams, pale creams, moscatels and Pedro Ximénez sweet wines, as did bodegas from nearby Andalucian wine regions such as Montilla-Moriles (Cordoba)with a range of finos, amontillados, olorosos and Pedro Ximénez; the Condado de Huelva with fortified Sherry-like wines, including delicious orange essence-flavored ones; and Málaga, which showed some exceptional moscatels.

Javier Hidalgo, Bodegas Hidalgo, Sanlúcar de Barrameda, directing a tasting of Manzanilla Sherries.

Cataluña was represented by sweet wines from Penedès and Priorat; Valencia by sweet mistela moscatels; Navarra by late harvest moscatels and vinos rancios; Alicante by moscatels and fondillones; Jumilla by late harvest Monastrell-based wines; and Rueda, Rías Baixas and Yecla by late harvest entries.

Felipe Gútierrez de la Vega, owner of Casta Diva (Alicante), producer of fine moscatels and fondillóns.

Only in Jerez at Vinoble can wine professionals and aficionados alike find such a broad range of high quality "Noble" wines. Even one day at Vinoble is an education into this relatively little-known, magical world of late harvest, fortified, botrytisized, dessert and dry wines such as manzanilla, fino and amontillado Sherries. Touring the Spanish stands, I was able to taste an amazing array of wines that underscored the importance of this emerging genre of exceptional wines from all around Spain.

John Salvi, Master of Wine, tasting palo cortado at Palacio de Domecq.

Julian Jeffs, author of "Sherry," tasting palo cortado at Palacio de Domecq.

Also see:

Andalucian Journal: April in Sanlúcar de Barrameda, Home of Manzanilla Sherry: Adventures with Javier Hidalgo, Producer of La Gitana Manzanilla, in Las Marismas, Lunch in a Very Secret Place

Sherry’s Image Gets a Makeover

Sherry: Culinary Institute of America - Greystone (Napa Valley)

Culinary Institute of America - Greystone (Napa Valley)

Worlds of Flavor Conference

Interview with Gerry Dawes on Sherry 

Spain produces one of the most fascinating and least understood beverages in the world: Sherry. Made in a spectrum of styles, from dry to sweet and from pale gold to walnut brown, sherry can accompany a meal from soup to dessert. Here to guide us through some of the finer points of tasting and serving sherry is a longtime enthusiast and connoisseur, Gerry Dawes.

Q: Before we start the tasting, can you give a quick overview of how sherry is made?

I recommend that you look at books like Julian Jeffs’ (Sherry by Julian Jeffs, Faber & Faber, 1961) because the fractional blending, or solera, system is quite complex. To oversimplify it, if you imagine a pyramid of barrels, you draw off the wine you’re going to sell from the bottom row, then refill those part-empty barrels from the second row, and refill the second row from the top row. So some of the sherry in each bottle is as old as the solera itself.

If you see a bottle that says “Solera 1950,” that was the year the solera was established. New wine keeps getting added, but each barrel contains fractional amounts of wine from the earliest foundations of the winery.

That’s what gives sherry its continuity and character. It is constantly building on its ancestor wines. The young wine takes on the character of the older wine, so you’re able to produce a uniform, steady product year after year.

Most of Spain’s best sherries are now available in the U.S. The important thing to realize is that sherries now are better than they’ve ever been in their history. The sherry business went through a bad period, but the industry opted for quality, and what we’re seeing now are some of the greatest sherries every made.

Q: And the price is right.

For what you get out of a bottle, they’re very inexpensive. You can get eight to nine pours out of a bottle, so it costs far less per serving than a red wine consumed in one sitting by two people.

Dawes is going to introduce us to some of his favorite sherries. Listen closely to the words he uses when describing them. Some of the aromas and flavors he discerns in sherry are uncommon in Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and other familiar varietal wines.

Note that he begins his tasting with the most delicate wine and ends with the richest. In order from left to right, they are: manzanilla, fino, amontillado, Jerez cortado, oloroso and Pedro Ximénez.

Q: What about serving temperatures for these wines?

The manzanilla and fino should be served chilled. The others should be at cellar temperature, the temperature of a good white Burgundy—not chilled but cool. Never serve the fino or manzanilla warm, and never leave them open behind the bar. Always make sure they’re kept under refrigeration.

As for pairing sherry with food, Dawes has some great ideas.

(Click on link and scroll down to interview and video link.)

From Barrel to Glass

If you ever visit the sherry bodegas in Jerez de la Frontera or Sanlucar de Barrameda, you will see winemakers drawing sherry samples from barrels in a most dramatic fashion.