The Holy Grail

09-Jul-10 - I mentioned in an earlier post (07-Jun-10) that while I was doing the Murcia roadshow I received an e-mail from The Wine Society. This was on the Tuesday (08-Jun-10), and it said that, in celebration of its 175th anniversary, González Byass had produced 175 dozen bottles of Tío Pepe Fino en Rama (i.e. unfiltered and straight from the cask) and that the Society had bought 100 dozen, in six-bottle cases. It was about £12 a bottle but well worth a look, and when I got home again on the Friday (11-Jun-10)  I rang the Society, only to be told that they had sold out. In three days? I wrote to Martin Skelton, the Managing Director of GB-UK and he told me that the entire 175 dozen bottles had sold out within three hours of the initial announcement, and that there might be some more in 2035, when GB celebrates its 200th anniversary. Since I shall be 88 if I am spared that long, this did not seem a very good option. Martin did, however, point me in the direction of Lea and Sandeman, who, he said, 'might have a few bottles left'. In the event they managed to scrape together a six-bottle case which, with delivery charge, pushed the price up to about £16.50 a bottle. Maybe I should have topped up the order with something else. But no matter. I had the wine!

A word about Fino en Rama: many years ago I was with Miguel Valdespino (now retired) at his eponymous bodega in Jerez (now part of the Estévez Group) tasting Ynocente from the cask. He sighed: "I'm going to have to stop doing this." When I asked why, he replied "because journalists come here, taste the wine from the cask, and then write articles saying that you can only experience the true Fino when you're actually in the bodega... So the customers shrug and say 'well, not worth buying it, then...'"

And, indeed, when I was first in the trade in the early 1970s, the received wisdom was that 'real' Fino and Manzanilla 'didn't travel' and had to be fortified to 17-18% abv, which made them lose their freshness, in order to survive the journey. Technology has moved on quite a bit since then, and Finos and Manzanillas are now routinely 15% abv (but do try the Waitrose Solera Jerezana Fino and Manzanilla at 17.5% abv - they are splendid).

Back to Tío Pepe, however. I rested the wines for, well I usually advocate seven days, but temptation overcame me after just four days and I opened the first bottle. My initial taste was a bit of a disappointment: it was Tío Pepe, of course, clean, fresh, nutty, delicious... But just Tío Pepe. It wasn't until the second glass that I realised what had happened. The whole point about Fino en Rama is that it's coarse-filtered so that the residual flor yeast remains in the wine, but after 48 hours in the fridge, the yeast had sunk to the bottom. The trick is to upend the bottle before opening (as you'd do with a bottle-conditioned beer) to make sure that the yeast is evenly distributed (not something you'd do with any other wine in the world!). The result was sublime: pale gold with a slight haze of flor, redolent of yeast, roasted almonds, herbs, fresh, clean and bone dry. We finished off the bottle with Eversley Chinese chicken (with tarragon, fresh ginger, water chestnuts and chillies) and it was, perhaps, one of the greatest combinations known to gastronomy.

So good, in fact, that Jill (who professes not to like Sherry) asked for another bottle later in the week with Eversley gammon (with asparagus, crushed potatoes, broad beans and coriander in an asparagus sauce). One way and another, we only have two bottles of the original six left, and it has to be drunk by 13-Aug-10 according to the bottling date (the flor starts to grow again after three months). Knowing that there's not the faintest chance of getting any more I really don't know what to do...

Remember that you can usually find wines at
www.wine-searcher.com (but probably not this one. Ed)

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