1876 Facts About Sherry by Henry Vizetelly

Jerez Vineyards North of the Town,

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black Alicante grapes after they had been exposed to the sun for a considerable time. This wine, unlike the Eota Tent,is per fectly fermented,the mosto being left upon the skins for four- and-twenty hours, and then drawn off to complete its fermenta tion in other casks. A large inconvenient residence, dominated by a lofty square tower and partly hidden by a belt of ornamental trees, occupies the most elevated point of High Macharnudo. A winding avenue of acacias, mulberry-trees, and cypresses leads to the house,the principal apartments of which,long since unoccupied, are decorated in a fantastic fashion, and recall the time of the lirst French Empire,when Joseph sat on the Spanish throne and Soult lorded it in Andalusia. The viewfrom the towerembraces a perfect panorama of vine-clad slopes and hiUs, scattered faims, white-walled towns, and hazy mountain peaks. The adjacent press-house—the largest we have ever seen—contains as many as twenty lagares. Adjoining is a capacious bodega capable of storing 1,000 butts, but the mosto is no longer left to ferment there. The principal casa de la gente is a vast apartment of three aisles, and accommodates several hundred men, for the daily ragout of whom and their fellows about fifteen sheep were being regularly killed. In face of High Macharnudo and on the opposite side of the Trebujena road are the Almocaden vineyards, whose Moorish name,signiiyiug captain of troops guarding the camps,suggests a somewhat remote antiquity. The wine produced here, and especially in the vineyard of Matamoros, is highly valued at Jerez. Another excellent vineyard,known as the A.B.—these being the initials of aformer proprietor—adjoins Senor Domecq's Majuelo on the other side. It is only thirty acres in extent, but it produces an admirable fino wine of remarkable delicacy,which the owner, Senor Gonzalez, rears and ships intact. A few hundred yards off is another small vineyard belonging to the same proprietor, which also yields a high-class wine,though not of the same refined character.