Talk-A-Vino

Yes, I know. Halloween is history now, so why am I even mentioning it?

Because I know that those Halloween candies are still lurking around, and will be for a while. And Halloween candy is not something which would make you crave the wine. But it doesn’t have to be that way. There are wines out there which will help you get rid of the candies – with pleasure. What am I suggesting? Let’s talk about Sherry, also known as Jerez.

Jerez wines (officially known as Jerez-Xérès-Sherry) take its name from the town Jerez de la Frontera in Andalusia, Spain, with the grapes coming from the vineyards surrounding the town. Jerez is one of the oldest winemaking regions in Europe, tracing its roots to more than 3,000 years back. Sherry is a fortified wine, and it came to being around the 8th century when the distillation process was invented. As a fortified wine Sherry can be compared to Port, however, the major difference is that Port is typically fortified in the middle of the fermentation process, to preserve the sugars in the wine, where Sherry wines are typically fully fermented, and then fortified, so with the exception of the particular style of Pedro Ximénez, most of the Sherries are dry wines.

There are many styles of Sherry wines, offering various levels of dryness, complexity, and oxidative qualities. Sherry wines are often also produced using the solera method, where the wines of the different vintages or constantly combined and resulting wines might represent a blend of hundred of vintages. The world of Sherry is quite complex, so if you want to read about all the different styles, this Wikipedia article contains a lot of good information.

González Byass started in 1835 in Jerez de la Frontera, in the heart of the Sherry country. Now in the 5th and 6th generation, González Byass is one of the major sherry producers, combining a number of Sherry brands under one umbrella. I had three sherries from González Byass to play with the candies – let me tell you how did it go.

First, the dry wine – Gonzalez Byass Alfonso Jerez Oloroso Seco. As it is a dry wine, it expectedly didn’t work too well with most of the candies, but I found some options:

Gonzalez Byass Alfonso Jerez Oloroso Seco (18% ABV, $25, Palomino 100%, aged for 8 years in solera)
Light amber color
Hazelnuts, sapidity, herbs
Hazelnuts, clean acidity, Rosemary, beautifully complex
Worked best with Payday because of explicit saltiness – not really with Reese’s or KitKat

The bottle on the right is directly from the wine fridge and it is ready to drink – the Harveys letters are blue

I recently wrote about Harveys – after years of personal neglect, this became a gateway wine for me to warm up again to the world of Jerez. As Harveys is quite sweet but not super-sweet, it provided the best pairing option for the majority of candies.

Harveys The Bristol Cream (17.5% ABV, $20, 80% Palomino, 20% Pedro Ximénez, a blend of 7 yo Fino, Oloroso, PX and Amontillado Soleras)
Dark amber color
Light herbaceous nose, a touch of dried fruit
Dried fruit on the palate, good acidity, refreshing
Nice with Reese’s, works well with KitKat, excellent with Payday

Nectar is seriously sweet wine (residual sugar of 370 grams per liter), but it is nevertheless very balance and delivers tremendous pleasure. The Pedro Ximénez (usually abbreviated as PX) is one of my most favorite dessert wines in general. The Pedro Ximénez grapes are dried on the mats for 2 weeks before pressing, losing 40% of liquid and becoming practically raisins – this explains the depth of color you can see in the picture above.

Gonzalez Byass Nectar Pedro Ximénez Dulce (15% ABV, 25%, 100% Pedro Ximénez, aged for about 8 years in solera)
Very dark amber color, almost black
Dried figs, dates, inviting.
Dried figs all the way, delicious, clean acidity on the finish, perfect balance
Great with KitKat, complements
Excellent with Reese’s, okay with Payday, Butterfinger – not so much

There you are, my friends. Don’t sweat the Halloween candies – pair them with a good Sherry. Or you know what – you can actually dump the candy – Sherry should be enough to keep you happy. Cheers!