1876 Facts About Sherry by Henry Vizetelly

Concluding RemarJcs.

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comparing some admirable fines with tbe same wines fined for shipment, and in every instance the latter had perceptibly suffered both in flavom- and perfume. Indeed, after added spirit, this practice of fining is the next thing that tends to deteriorate the higher quahties of sherry. Wines of the amontillado and oloroso character improve materially by being kept from two to five years,and even longer,, in bottle. They become softer and rounder,losing much ofthat fiigfi; pungent flavour which they acquire with increasing age. On the other hand,wines of the fino type which have not been saturated with spirit, not merely do not improve but positively deteriorate after having been in bottle for a twelvemonth. The so-called bottle flavour,in fact, simply destroys their ambrosial freshness, and impairs alike their elegance and their delicacy. The question of admitting wine containing more than the regulation 26"of proof spirit at the lowestrate of duty—namely. Is.per gallon—is again undergoing discussion,and certainly the growers of sherry are justified in their protests. For so far as my own researches enable me to judge, it is beyond question spite ofthe investigations made soine years ago by the agents of Her Majesty s Customs—that sherry as its age increases will develop ahigher strength than 26 degrees when not even a drain of extraneous spirit has been added to it from the moment the grapes were pressed in the lagar. This is doubtless due to the evaporation of the aqueous portion ofthe winein the hot and dry chmate of Jerez, and which is estimated bythe rearers of shei-ry at4per cent,and upwards annually. In the Jerez bodegasI con- stantly came across wine ofthe very highest character,to which, according to reliable evidence, no more than 1 per cent,of spirit had been added,and yet by tbe time it was twenty years old—no exceptional age,it must be remembered,for a Jerez wine—it in dicated from 33" to 34" of proof spii-it. Shei-ry-growers say with justice that in the face of these facts it m unfair to place Spanish wines,or the wines of southern latitudes generally,on the same basis as the winesof France and Germany,which naturally are much below the formerin alcoholic