Sherry by Talia Baiocchi - Recipes and Excerpt

8/11/2019 Sherry by Talia Baiocchi - Recipes and Excerpt

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introduction1

1 HOW SHERRY IS MADE9

2 WINES OF THE SHERRY SPECTRUM39

3 SHERRY THROUGH THE AGES69

4 THE MODERN SHERRY RENAISSANCE79

5 THE TOWNS AND BODEGAS89

6 SHERRY COCKTAILS159

7 SHERRY AT THE TABLE231

where to find sherry253

acknowledgments256

index259

contents


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HOWSHERR

Y

ISMADE

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very so often when the topic of sherry comes up, theres at least

one person who says, Oh, sherry. Right. So what exactlyis it? After

plenty of contemplation (a books worth), Ive realized that the best

possible answer really is, How long do you have? A few hours? A lifetime would

really be better.

In my opinion, there is no other wine in the world whose spectrum is more

versatile and wildly contrasting, and no other that defies an easy explanation

quite so well. How do you succinctly sum up a wine whose range includes both

the sweetest and the driest wines in the world? Theres more than two hundredyears of flowery prose on the subject to prove just how difficult it is.

Here goes, though.

By modern definition, sherry is a fortified wine aged in above-ground

cellars called bodegas in three main towns within the Andalusian province of

CdizJerez de la Frontera, Sanlcar de Barrameda, and El Puerto de Santa

Marawhich form the corners of the marco de Jerez, orthe Sherry Triangle.

Though these towns are just miles from one another, each has its own distinct

culture, history, and set of microclimates. What these differences breedaside

from lots of intra-Triangle towel snappingare wines whose characteristics

can vary quite significantly from one town to the next. These nuances play out

within the spectrum of sherry styles, from bone-dry fino and manzanilla to

dry but boldly oxidative oloroso to the two main sweet wines produced in the

region, pedro ximnez and moscatel.

There are three elements of sherrys production that set it apart. The first

is the solera system, a method of gradually blending new wines with older

wines so that ultimately each bottle is a mixture of many wines of varying ages,

rather than a single vintage.

The second unique element is flor, the layer of yeast that naturally growson the surface of the wine and contributes to the character of every style of dry

sherry except for oloroso. Flor drastically changes the wine aged under it

contributing, most famously, to the extreme dryness and textural delicacy

of fino and manzanilla, which spend their life aging exclusively under the

veloveilof flor. This is known as biological aging.

And third is the unique relationship between the terroir of the vineyard

the interplay of soil, climate, grape varietyand the terroir of the physical structure

where the wine is aged. No other wine tradition anywhere in the world pays

Esuch detailed attention to the space in which a wine matures. The location of

the bodeganear the sea or inland, partially sheltered from the winds off the

Atlantic or in direct exposure to themis one of the major factors that contrib-

utes to the character of the finished wine. Equally important is the location of

each of the barrels within the bodega, and the unique population of microbial

yeasts within each.

sherry

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how sherry is made

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Sanlcar de Barrameda

San Lucar de Barrameda is a small but pretty town with near 5000 inhabitantssituated on the left bank of the Guadalquivir. It is famous for smuggling and

frauds of every kind. Its foreign commerce produces a certain degree of luxury

in furniture, dress, and the pleasures of the table, and there is a white wine

called Vino de Manzanilla, so called from a small town seven leagues from

Seville, which is a good deal like Burgundy.

Frederick Augustus Fischer,Travels in Spain in 1797 and 1798 (published 1802)

Here in Sanlcar, where the Guadalquivir River flows down from Sevilla to meet

the Atlantic, a gloriously confused mix of flora litters the edge of the water

bamboo-like reeds tangle with pine brush, and palm trees stand tall in a pride-ful reminder of Andalusias latitude. While the citys fortunate location on the

seaand its centuries-long reputation as a great place to take it easyhas pro-

duced pockets of more modern development, its also not difficult to imagine

the town as it was over a hundred years ago.

The Barrio Altothe oldest part of the city, perched atop a bluff overlook-

ing the seastill looks much like it did in the nineteenth century (albeit a bit

more timeworn). And the Barrio Bajo is still dotted with palaces built during

boom times, now in various stages of disrepair.

To Sanlcars nineteenth-century aristocracy, todays city wouldve likely

been their imagination of end times. Yet what makes this city great has noth-

ing to do with a polished appearance or economic prosperity. Sanlcar is built

on something far stronger: state of mind. And if the world were ending, or had

ended and I managed to survive, Id want to be in a bar on the Bajo de Gua.

Here along the stretch of boardwalk overlooking the mouth of the

Guadalquivir, fishermen travel in small boats to and from the Atlantic, offering

the view for a strip of seafood restaurants and bars packed with locals feasting

on the bounty theyve supplied. Sitting at any one of them its not hard to wish

that life was one long Spanish Saturday punctuated by plates of langostinos andan endless parade of manzanillafrom the half bottle, of course. In a testament

to the lifestyle in Sanlcar, manzanilla is rarely ordered by the glass here. If you

dont have time for at least a half bottle, you dont have time for lunch.

Identifying as Sanluqueo, whether or not one even lives there, refers

partly to this particular talent for relaxation. But its also something deeper,

something that has to do with the towns subtly rebellious benta revolu-

tionary spirit stifled by economic despair, but not stomped out. While there

have always been bodegas here that matched Jerezs in grandeur and scale

the towns and bodegas | sanlcar

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HidalgoLa Gitana and Barbadillo notable among themSanlcar has histori-

cally been a cottage industry in comparison, a city whose wine business was

always run by many rather than a noble few.

At its height, it was home to hundreds of growers and more than eighty

independent bodegas or almacenistas, but regulations enacted in the 1970s

which forbade producers owning fewer than 2,500 barrels (or 12,500 hectoliters

of wine) to bottle and ship their own wineseither turned many of Sanlcars

small bodegas into almacenistas dependent on larger producers or put them

out of business. After the restriction was lifted in 1996, the industry never fully

recovered. And while the landscape of the wine industry has changed here, the

cultural identity that Sanlcars cottage industry created has not. And today, a

general lightness of being still persists here despite the citys many challenges.

You feel it almost immediately, in a greater propensity to smile, to tell a joke to a

stranger, to order just one more bottle of manzanilla.

Maybe its the proximity to the sea or the embarrassment of riches plucked

from it. Whatever it is, its produced a powerful sense of joy, and today Sanlcar

remainsas Rupert Croft-Cooke described it in his 1956 Sherryone of the

most naturally happy places in the world.

bodega hijos de rainera prez marn(la guita)

Bodega Hijos de Rainera Prez Marnwhich is more commonly known for

the name of the only wine it produces, La Guitawas founded in 1852 by Don

Domingo Prez Marn. The name La Guita refers not only to a nineteenth-century

slang word for cash (stories about Don Domingo suggest he was a bit of a

hustler) but also to the Spanish word for stringhence the tiny piece of raffia

affixed to each bottle.

La Guita is Spains number one selling manzanilla. In wine, mass popular-

ity is often synonymous with low quality (in America, Sutter Home is still one ofour most popular brands, after all), but La Guita has been able to avoid the sort

of banality long associated with large-scale wine production.

Today the La Guita solera system is split into two cellars: one old and one new.

The old cellar, originally built in 1526, is called Misericordia and is situated at one

of the highest points in Sanlcars Barrio Alto. Between 1867 and 1868 the building,

originally a hospital, was transformed into a bodega and today houses around

2,000 of the more than 14,000 barrels (which, filled to 500-liter capacity, would

translate to more than nine million bottles of wine) that make up the solera system.

sherry

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pale rider

The Pale Rider was born out of Phil Wards deep hatred of sangria. This drink is almost

a sangria, but sangrias are garbage, says Ward, of Mayahuel in New York City. As

most of us know, via early forays into college drink-making, sangria is hard to batch

with any consistency and it doesnt keep all that long. It also invariably leads to extreme

intoxication. In order to tighten things up, Ward infuses fruit into booze so he can

recreate his rifs on sangria with greater consistency. The Pale Rider swaps out fruit

for jalapeo and simply adds manzanilla, a small dose of cane syrup, and lime. This

is not only a Ward drink to its corespicy and adamantly savorybut also one

that showcases how well sherry performs in even the simplest of drinks.

ounces manzanilla

ounce jalapeo tequila (see below)

ounce fresh lime juice

ounce cane syrup (: sugar:water)

ounce soda

Garnish: slices cucumber

jalapeo tequila

fresh jalapeos

cups silver tequila

add the sherry,tequila, lime juice, and

cane syrup to a mixing glass. Add ice,

shake, and strain into a wine tumbler

over ice. Top with the soda, garnish

with the cucumber slices, and serve

with a straw.

cut the jalapeoslengthwise and

extract the seeds and membranes; add

them to a glass bowl. Discard the rest of

the pepper. Add the tequila to the seeds

and membranes and infuse for 10 to

20 minutes, depending on the heat of

the peppers. Finely strain and bottle.

Keep at room temperature for up to

1 month.

sherry

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SHERRYCO

CKTAILS

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sherry cobbler

The Sherry Cobbler is an American-born cocktail by most accounts. Simply sherry,

sugar, and citrus shaken, poured over crushed ice, and slurped through a straw, the

cobbler is thought to have originated sometime in the s or early s. And,

like most nineteenth-century drinks, its exact origins have been endlessly debated.

One thing is for sure: the Sherry Cobbler was the first drink to introduce the drinking

straw to popular consciousness.

Like the straw, ice was not a common element of cocktail anatomy prior to the

cobbler. (Neither, by the way, was shaking a drink.) The commercial ice trade did not

begin in earnest until the s, and even in the mid-s, as Mark Twain recalls

in his memoir Life on the Mississippi, Ice was jewelry; none but the rich could wear it.

So, even if the protocobbler did originate in eighteenth-century England, as an article in the London Telegraphseemed to suggest, it likely bore little resemblance

to the ice-packed cobbler of mid-nineteenth-century Americathe version that

became the most popular drink of its time.

Cocktail historian David Wondrich is credited with digging up the first known

mention of the Sherry Cobbler in the diary of Katherine Jane Ellice, a Canadian

who took note of the drink while traveling in the United States. But its great launch -

ing pad to international renown came courtesy of Charles Dickens and his Life and

Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit(). In a scene now famous among cocktail

dorks, Chuzzlewit, reacting to his first Sherry Cobbler, sums up the nineteenth-

century sentiment around the drink: Martin took the glass with an astonished look;

applied his lips to the reed; and cast up his eyes once in ecstasy. He paused no more

until the goblet was drained to the last drop. This wonderful invention, sir, said

Mark, tenderly patting the empty glass, is called a cobbler. Sherry Cobbler when you

name it long; cobbler, when you name it short.

Some years ater the Sherry Cobblers decades-long heyday, its being

rediscovered, both as a classic and as a drink prime for rifing. Get weird with your

garnishes or omit them altogether, but whatever you do, just dont forget the straw.

lemon wheel

orange wheel

ounce simple syrup (: sugar:water)

ounces amontillado

Garnish: berries in season, citrus, mint, a

Lego minifiganything, really

in a mixing glassadd the lemon,

orange, and simple syrup, and muddle.

Add the sherry, fill with ice, and shake.

Finely strain into a Collins glass

over crushed ice. Top up with addi-

tional crushed ice and garnish like

theres no tomorrow.

sherry

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Some of the recipes in this book include raw eggs. When eggs are consumed raw, there is always

the risk that bacteria, which is killed by proper cooking, may be present. For this reason, always

buy certified salmonella-free eggs from a reliable grocer, storing them in the refrigerator until

they are served. Because of the health risks associated with the consumption of bacteria that can

be present in raw eggs, they should not be consumed by infants, small children, pregnant women,

the elderly, or any persons who may be immunocompromised. The author and publisher expressly

disclaim responsibility for any adverse efects that may result from the use or application of the

recipes and information contained in this book.

Copyright by Talia Baiocchi

Photographs copyright by Ed Anderson

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group,

a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

www.crownpublishing.com

www.tenspeed.com

Ten Speed Press and the Ten Speed Press colophon are registered trademarks of

Random House LLC.

The map on page appears courtesy of the Consejo Regulador de las DD.O. Jerez-Xeres-Sherry.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Baiocchi, Talia.

Sherry : a modern guide to the wine worlds best-kept secret, with cocktails and recipes /Talia Baiocchi.

pages cm

Includes index.

. Sherry. I. Title.

TP.S.B

'.dc

Hardcover ISBN: ----

eBook ISBN: ----

Printed in China

Design by Betsy Stromberg

Cover design by Headcase Design

First Edition


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Sherry by Talia Baiocchi - Recipes and Excerpt

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