If you already love sherry, disregard the next 500 or so words of zealous waffle and get straight to uncorking the bottle in your fridge door. You are, however, a rare breed. To the likes of us, sherry remains one of the most intriguing, culturally ancient, varied and criminally underpriced styles of wine on the planet. To many others, however, particularly younger consumers, it’s seen as, well, a bit meh. It’s a wine with a bit of baggage, and lack of interest and education has typified the entire output as a sticky-sweet, treacly wine, enjoyed by grandmothers and mostly at Christmas.
So how to give sherry a sexy makeover for the modern age? Understanding how and when we might enjoy sherry is always the key to unlocking the fascination. For me, the salinity and freshness of fino and manzanilla lend themselves to start-of-a-meal drinking, in much the same way that you’d use a more complex, nutty sparkling wine. Sherry can be just as surprisingly versatile a pairing as a rich champagne, particularly with nuts and cured meats (especially Spanish ones, obviously), while the yeasty notes gained from time spent ageing under a layer of “flor” pair especially well with pizzas.
