Live from Sherry Country - Spanish Buyer Joe Manekin

Since you all love single malt whisky aged in sherry, I figured we should take advantage of the fact that Joe Manekin, our Spanish wine buyer, is in Jerez right now tasting new selections for our store. What better way to learn more about the famed fortified wine than by having our man write about it directly from the source? Sherry is MUCH more than just a flavor enhancer for whisky. It's its own culture, entirely. Take it away, Joe:

Greetings, K&L Spirits Journal readers! I'm crashing David's excellent blog (with his permission, of course) to talk Sherry. While I know that David has posted on Sherry in the past, and has done an extremely good job of explaining how it's made, why you should be drinking it, and so on, I wanted to take a different approach this year. First, I will hopefully show you, with words and photographs, a little something of the romance, the tradition and culture of Jerez (not just Jerez the beverage, but the city, the surrounding towns, the cuisine, and so on). Second, in my next post we will get to the nitty gritty details of what it is like to taste through a solera, with the hopes of assembling a blend or selecting a specific barrel for exclusive K&L bottling, much like we do in Scotland with single malt scotches. What an experience that was, tasting through barrels of VORS Amontillado likely exceeding 40 years of age, marking with chalk the stand outs in one of the leading bodegas of Sanlucar de Barrameda!

For now, though, can I tell you a little about Jerez? This small Andalusian city is Spain on level 11. Everything you might associate with the country: beautiful women in colorful, polka dotted flamenco dresses, college students singing and clapping in that flamenco (1-2-3, 1-2-and-3 rhythm), old timers enjoying a drink and a tapa, rapping with the barkeep in thick southern accents (here, not only the 'z' and soft 'c's are lisped as they are elsehwere in Spain, but the letter 's' as well). There is a quote about Andalucia's largest city, "Sevilla is not full of atmosphere, Sevilla is atmosphere." I would argue the same for Jerez. Here, have a look:

Between plazas in the old city.

Bar Juanito, proudly serving Valdespino Fino "Ynocente".

Facade of a smaller old church in Jerez.

Beautiful hanging "Jabugo" Iberico hams...

...and the delicious slices served with bread sticks!

Carilladas, the famed braised beef cheeks, are a natural with rich, dry and sumptuous oloroso sherry.

The scene at Tabanco el Pasaje, a great locals joint.

Stay tuned as I'll l be reporting from Sanlucar de la Barrameda, tasting casks of some very old Amontillado very soon!

-Joe Manekin

David Driscoll