1876 Facts About Sherry by Henry Vizetelly

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Facts about Sherry.

the origin of the house dates hack to the early part of the last century. The Haurie of that epoch commenced to ship •wine to Prance from Jerez duriug the Spanish War of Succession, and when the Peace of Utrecht was signed, hastened to send sherry to England—sherry over which Steele may have become more light-hearted. Swift more morose, Bolingbroke more eloquent, and Addison more didactic. As many as eighteen firms of shippers are said to have sprung from this single house, which plumes itself principally upon its light blended ■wines of the old-fashioned type, although it has numerous remarkable soleras of amontiUado and oloroso,including ■wines whichsecured the four first-class medals at the Jerez Exhibition of 1856. The celebrated Breadalbane " stag sherry," which fetched £7 5s. per dozen at the Dalhousie sale last year, was one of the shipments of this notable firm. The ■wines we tasted at the Haurie bodegas included. a complete scale of amontillados ranging from the mosto of last year up to a ■wine of about thirty years old. The fine etherous flavour which disting^uishes the higher-class amontillados was very apparent in theolder samples. Promabout their sixthyear the ■wines grew perceptibly finer ■with increasing age ■until we arrived at the upper part of the scale, when their pungency and spirituousness became too pronounced to recommend them for ordinary consumption. One comparatively youthful sample kno^wn as the "Ah!" had a fine fresh fragrant fiavo^ur, andwhile possessing ample body was yet of sufficiently low alcoholic strength to be very agreeable drinking. We subsequently tasted some rich olorosos the pungent flavour of which was subdued by a charming ro^undness, and finally wound up with a grand blended ■wine of high but refined flavour and great mello^wness, which was priced, as such a wine merited to be, at ^240 a butt. DonDiego de Agreda has n^umerous fine soleras of various classes of Jerez ■wines stored in his bodega, which, divided into as many as eight aisles, communicates ■with by far the most beautiful garden in all Jerez. Here, even late in the autumn, one found brilliant floral parterres, ■with choice tropical plants,