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As well as sherry wines, most of the bodegas in Jerez produce sherry vinegar and brandy. The best vinegars are on a par with balsamic vinegars from Modena in Italy. They don’t normally have the sweetness of their Italian counterparts but have a distinctly nutty flavour. A finger dipped in the vinegar we tried was enough to verify this.
| The Sánchez Romate bodega is famous for its brandy Cardenal Mendoza. The spirit which is the base for the brandies in Jerez does not come form the area but from La Mancha, the great plain to the south of Madrid. All brandies in Jerez are aged in butts that have been used previously for ageing sherry, so the brandy takes on some of the characteristics of the wine. In Sánchez Romate all the butts that are used have previously held Pedro Ximénez wine. The base spirit which arrives in the winery is left in butts without being moved for two years. This then goes into a system of soleras and criaderas. We tasted the finished product from a solera butt. It was smooth with a sweet finish to it. |
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In 1971 38 butts of Cardenal Mendoza brandy were set aside and left for ten years when a special bottling was made to celebrate the bicentenary of the bodega in 1981. Only a fraction of the brandy, known as Non Plus Ultra, was bottled. Since this time a small amount is bottled each year. The butts are then replenished with Cardenal Mendoza brandy. Everyone got to taste this special brandy and judging by the ohhs and arrs, there was general agreement that this was something exceptional, an incredibly smooth complex brandy. In Spain this brandy retails at around 200 euros a bottle, maybe just a little over most people’s budget.
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After nearly three hours in the winery it was now time for some lunch so after profusely thanking Rafael we headed to one of Jerez's finest restaurants. We started off by sharing a number of entrées including mojama (air-cured tuna), excellent home-made pâté and an incredible potato salad which had an amazing sherry vinegar as part of the ingredients. Everyone then chose a main dish of fish or meat. Many of these dishes included sauces made with oloroso, amontillado or pedro ximénez. The Iberian pork sirloin I had with a pedro ximenez based sauce was superlative. The desserts included the ice-cream with pedro ximénez wine that was mentioned beforehand and another local speciality, sherry trifle! It was just as good as the trifle my mother used to make! |
Lunch over, it was time for a stroll around the old part of Jerez before heading back to Seville after a very full day in more ways than one, and not one joke about sherry-drinking vicars or maiden aunts.
Read about our Sherry wine tour with Roger
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