The Jerezanos don't drink sherry like we do. And the sherry they drink is different. It's lighter, less alcoholic and fresher-tasting. So you can drink it almost as you would any normal white wine; with fish or seafood ideally.
I have an indelible memory; every night on the coast near Jerez, in Puerto Santa Maria they set out vast stalls of freshly caught and fried sea-life … of every shape and size imaginable. Girls will fill you a paper cornet of whatever mix you fancy …which you take to a bar and consume slowly with a few glasses of chilled light fino. And sitting in the warm and balmy sea air, life is very good indeed.
I would like to encourage all of you to try drinking fino sherry this way … because it is one of the greatest wine experiences on the planet.
But there is of course a teensy problem; the fino sherry here in Britain is too strong to drink like a normal white wine.
We think we have resolved this problem with Valdespera.
I believe this is a wine of a style that has never been drunk in Britain before. In fact I doubt it’s been drunk much at all outside the bodegas where it is made. For this isn't sherry … as such. Absolutely not. It’s just the simple, fresh young table wine, such as sherry is eventually made from, through the lengthy solera process… (Students; Wine Atlas pp 199-200). We wine buyers get to taste it when a bodega talks us through their sacred and complicated ritual. And I have always loved it’s simplicity and tang … and wanted to buy it for you.
It has taken twenty years but now I've got some … through Jean-Marc and his Spanish winemaker contacts. They agreed to let us have this “proto-sherry”. And if you can rustle up some grilled gambas or langostinos and you then open a fiercely cold bottle of Valdespera, you will understand that this is a significant addition to your wine-drinking pleasure.
The magic of this wine is all down to what Hugh Johnson calls the "protective, bread-like layer of the strange Jerez yeast called flor" which lies on the surface of the new wine keeping oxygen out and imparting that nutty, fresh baked bread flavour we all know well.
Thing is, when bottled (with the protective 'flor' removed) such a wine, in the past, just had to be fortified with a bit of brandy if it was to stand up to the rigours of transport to Britain. But today, in the 21st century they don’t really need to do that. So we have been able to get for the first time, I believe, a totally natural flor-affected white wine.
The closest table wine to Valdespera this must be the similarly (but not identically) flor-affected Vins Jaune of the Jura in north east France. Incredibly rare, and quite amazing, Château-Chalon AOC wines currently retail at around £34 for a 62cl. Clavelin! Haven’t bought any in years.
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