1876 Facts About Sherry by Henry Vizetelly

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Facts about Sherry.

IV.—Other Jerez Vineyards.

The Cerro de Obregon Vineyard of Messrs. Cosens and Co.—Treatment of the Grapes for Vino Dolce—TheArrangementof the Casade la Vina—^Wasted Eaisins—Breakfast at the Vineyard—Sequestrations hy Brigands in the Neighbourhood of Jerez—The Successful Eesistance of Aunt Matias's Nephew—Short Shrift to Captured Brigands—The San Julian, Leon,and Las CanasVineyards—Bobbery of the Guard atthelatter—The Tula Vine yard, with its mock Moorish Castle and Battlemented Almijar—^Vineyards of the Plain—The Vineyard facing the Spoon Wineshop—Senor Campo's Vineyard—^Waste of Labour in working both Wine-Press and Plough— The Cartuja Monastery and its Ancient Bodega. A SHORT league to tlie west of Jerez, and along the San Lucar road, is the Cerro de Obregon vineyard, belonging to the large shipping house of Cosens and Co. Like the vineyards of Carrascal and Ducha already described,the soil is albariza, and, although the vines are scarcely twenty years old, the wine yielded is of fine quality. We started off there early in the morning,our way lying through undulating country covered with stunted stubble, of which herds of oxen were having the run in search ofsuch stray wisps ofstraw as might hitherto have escaped their observation. Mule and bullock carts, jolting along to Jerez with butts of mosto,and raising dense clouds of dust in their wake, continually met us on the road, in company with much-enduring donkeys, happyenough when their ordinary load was not supplemented by a couple of strapping feUows astride their unwilling backs. The vineyard, upwards of eighty acres in extent, and over which not so much as a single weed or a blade of grass could be detected, covers the sides of a steep hill, having on its summit a small plateau, where the casa de la vina has been erected. Hence a beautiful and extensive view is obtained over farms and a succession of rolling ground,rich vine-clad hills, slopes, and ridges, intersected bv winding roads, and dotted over with bright-looking little white casas hemmed in by occasional trees.