Kudos for Spain: An Insider's Guide

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"Just finished shooting the fourth season of my seemingly endless PBS/Europe series and had a chance to view your blog.  It is great, and it's of particular interest to me because I only a few years ago visited Spain. . . For some reason, Spain was never on the list.  But it certainly is now!  And I, of course, love Spanish wines." -- Contributing writer, National Geographic Traveler; public radio's "Savvy Traveler"; and host & co-executive producer of the 52-part public television series, "Smart Travels: Europe with Rudy Maxa.

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Hi Gerry,

Wow -- this looks great! We'll look forward to spending more time on your site, and to sharing word of it with our 10K+ e-Newsletter readers!

All the best,
Karen & Andrew

Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg
James Beard Award-winning authors of BECOMING A CHEF, CULINARY ARTISTRY, DINING OUT, CHEF'S NIGHT OUT and THE NEW AMERICAN CHEF
527 Third Ave. Suite 130 New York, NY 10016
Phone: (212) 642-5870 Email: Dornenburg@aol.com
www.becomingachef.com

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The churros photos from Chocolateria San Gines, which I sent to my mailing list of friends, generated a slew of comments. Among them are these:

Dear Mr. Dawes,

"While looking at your photos, I put on two pounds. Couldn't you have made the photos smaller, so it could have been only two ounces?"
H.G. (old friend Howard Goldberg, The New York Times)

"Gerry, Thanks for the stuff. Impressive… I downloaded all of it and I’m sure it will give me hours of pleasurable and informative reading and reminiscing. Talk to you soon,"
d (Dominic Cerrone, French Culinary Institute)

"Hola Gerry; Solo puedo decir algo: ERES COJONUDO, me encanta tu trabajo sobre los churros y todo lo que pesco que tu has hecho y firmado. Un abrazo grandote,"
Juli Soler (Owner, El Bulli)

"Gerry, as usual, EXCELLENT! Have you yet written a book? And if not, why not/You are THE authority...and if you have I WANT IT! Best from Miami,"
Viviana Carballo (Miami Herald) "MMMMMmmmmm!!"

"God, I hope and pray my future contains a trip to Spain with you! (These are the only sorts of matters in which I invoke the help of the Deity.) Warmest Regards,"
Steve Lyle, Chef-Owner, Village Restaurant, NYC

"Gerry, You old salty Spanish dog, you're breaking my heart. You're damn right I want to be in Madrid right now, stopping in for some very early morning churros y chocolate after a most enjoyable tabas bar crawl with a bunch of buddies. Thanks."
Mark Vaughan, Editor & Publisher, Santé, The Magazine For Restaurant Professionals

"Magnificent....and wonderful, wonderful. Makes me want to give up Italy for SPAIN!! Thanks...it made my day that much brighter." Arlyn Blake, Publications, James Beard Foundation

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.

Wine From Spain News Photos

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Cava: Cheap & Chic Photos

All photos copyright 2006 by Gerry Dawes

Agusti Torello Sibill, Agusti Torello Mata Cava Producers

Cava ageing at Agusti Torello

Picker at Segura Viudas

Parellada grapes at Segura Viudas

Parellada grapes at Segura Viudas