I n t roduc t ion
T
he mini skirted 1960s and the kipper ties of the 1970s saw the heyday of sherry. Tutors and dons, vicars and grannies all broke social ice by uttering the immortal words: ‘Would you like a glass of sherry?’While Bordeaux, burgundy and port were all struggling to get back on their feet after the war, sherry sailed majestically on. Jerez, in Andalucía, was the destination of choice for wine visitors. Jerezanos knew how to produce wine and how to party. Their hospitality was as delightful as the chilled finos that they seem to consume 24/7. They were the first vinous playboys. Sun, Flamenco, horses and bullfighting all contributed to the sherry paradise in southern Spain.To paraphrase Harold Macmillan in another context in July 1957: ‘They’d never had it so good.’ Gradually, it all started to collapse. For the past 30 years or more, sherry volumes have been inexorably in decline. This was partly due to the rise and rise of ‘wine by the glass’, the fashion for Chardonnay and the resultant old-fashionedness of sherry. More pungently, it was the result of a single man, a local boy gone bad. A local boy who bit off more than he could chew and became as powerful as the Spanish government itself. A man who lost it all and, in doing so, was responsible for the devastating decline of this once great wine. That such an industry, such a source of pleasure, could virtually collapse is hard to believe. That it was all the fault of one man is even harder. But José Maria Ruiz-Mateos, convicted and jailed in 1985 for fraud, bamboozled even the greatest names and ran his vast empire, largely composed of prestigious sherry bodegas, into debts of over two billion euros. Sherry has yet to recover – the business, that is, not the quality of the wine, which under intense pressure has soared to new heights.
Amontillado from the barrel – or butt – with chalk at the ready for marking its quality thereon. Tabanco ‘El Pasaje’, Jerez de la Frontera.
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