The Guardian
The Sherry Revival

Why do people get sherry so wrong? They either ignore it completely or dig out some ancient bottle of sweetened stuff to dole out at Christmas to visiting aunts. For centuries, though, the English had a far stronger bond with what they called ‘sack‘. Drake pillaged thousands of barrels from Spain while Shakespeare‘s Falstaff called on audiences “to forswear thin potations and to addict themselves to sack.”

Sherry‘s popularity slide stemmed from various factors. The predominance on British shelves of sickly ‘cream sherry’ - sweetened young fino -  distorted any view of the real McCoy, while the idea that Spanish drink meant sangria didn’t help either. Ditto sherry’s uncool association with visiting aunts, plus a die-hard British resistance to educating their palates. But at last things are changing.

Sherry ranges from the driest wines on Earth to the sweetest. Fino is the lightest - bone dry with hints of grass, green apple and citrus. Its cousin manzanilla is distinguished by a tang imparted from briny breezes blowing through the seaside wineries of Sanlúcar de Barrameda - one of three places with Jerez de la Frontera and El Puerto de Santa Maria that define SW Spain’s ‘sherry triangle’.

Amontillado is a matured fino with nutty, caramel notes while oloroso is generally sweeter and more complex, with hints of caramel and toffee, dried fruits and spice. The sweetest is Pedro Ximenez - often just PX - whose dark intensity is dessert heaven and also a robust match for cheese.

Most sherry comes from an undistinguished grape called palomino whose real point is its affinity with the region’s dry, chalky soil. “Sherry is made in the winery, not the field,” says Beatriz Pascual, sherry specialist at award-winning wine merchants Boutinot.

The technique of only partial filling barrels allows producers to choose which factors dominate maturation. Fino and manzanilla are born beneath a yeast which appears on the wine’s surface called flor, which devours sugars to create dryness and adds notes of nuts, freshly baked bread, lemons plus a slight saltiness.

To make amontillados and olorosos, the flor is killed off by slightly raising alcohol content to above 17.5%, exposing the wine to air in the barrel. The resulting oxidation promotes these sherries’ varying degrees of dark richness. The unpredictability of the process, however, occasionally produces the rare sherry known as palo cortado - one which initially ages like an amontillado but then develops a character closer to oloroso.

To all this, add the solera system which sherry enters after maturing for at least three years in the barrel. Essentially, when some sherry is drawn for bottling it is replaced with younger wines from other barrels. This constant mixing of different ages allows blenders to play exquisitely with the taste of different bottlings.

Despite its unique production, Pascual says sherry should be appreciated like other wines. Ditch thimble servings and glug a decent 125ml measure into a proper wineglass. Swirl and nose appreciatively. Serve well-chilled for fino or manzanilla. And like any wine, don’t keep opened bottles for long - do not shove to the back of a cupboard between Christmases!

Sherry works wonderfully both with food and in it. When Mr Molecular Heston Blumenthal probed sherry he found specific compounds - diketopiperazines - linked to the umami taste which underpins the ‘deliciousness’ of certain foods. His subsequent sherry-and-food pairings included crab with amontillado and smoked mackerel with oloroso. At Brindisa in London’s Borough Market, top Spanish chef Jose Pizarro recommends cooking beef in oloroso, while for game or offal, he suggests amontillado. In Bristol,  Bordeaux Quay head chef Liz Payne cooks pork in both PX and amontillado. “Sherry has such developed flavours,” she says. “It comes through in a way unlike any other wine.”

Unfashionability has kept prices low. “Sherry is the best value wine on the planet,” argues Richard Bigg, who recently opened Britain’s first dedicated sherry bar, Bar Pepito in London’s King’s Cross. Here, staff guide customers through options for simple sipping or pairing with food, while eager learners can try a range of sherry ‘flights’ mixing three varieties from around £7.

Sherry’s cocktail star is also rising - a nod to an illustrious past when Sherry Cobbler was one of 19th century America’s most popular drinks and any decent 1920s list featured various sherry concoctions under evocative headings like Flip or Sangaree.  Glen Morgan at London’s LAB bar now pairs fino with bourbon, while across the Atlantic Jim Meehan at hip New York hangout PDT uses sherries with everything from tequila and vermouth to cream and mustard. “There is a sherry that will work for everyone’s palate,” says Meehan. So what are you waiting for? Let's hit the sack.