1876 Facts About Sherry by Henry Vizetelly

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Facts about Sherry.

wine and the possessor of an excellent stock to become a success ful shipper; it is requisite to have the taste and judgment to blend your wines artistically. A writer on the subject has aptly remarked that you may give a score of men the requisite materials, but only one ofthem will be able to produce a picture and so it is with reference to the more delicately blended types of sherry. The endless Varieties of this wine to be found jn a well-stocked bodega may be compared to so many musical notes which,in proportion to the skill with which they are arranged, conduce to a harmonious and successful result. Every one willremember thelate outcry raised against sherry, chiefly on the part of testimonial-purveying M.Ds. always ready to court publicity by rushing into print rmder the pretence of enlightening an unintelligent pubHc. It was paraded in the papers, as though it were a new discovery, that gypsum was used when making the wine,and the inference was drawn that sherry is necessarily prejudicial to health. Among other highly- coloured statements was one, made with an air of authority,to the effect that the grapes for each butt of shei-ry invariably had from 30 to 401bs. of gypsum thrown over them prior to their being trodden and pressed, the main effect of which was tO' transform the tartar of the must into sulphate of potash, an aperient salt 3 to 141bs. of which were stated to be contained in every butt of this popular wine. Tn common candour the author of this incredible misrepre sentation ought not to have withheld from the public his quali fications to speak so confidently on the subject. He should have told them that he had visited Jerez under the auspices of certain shipping houses to whom he offered, if not to repeat the miracle of Cana, at any rate to produce amontillado by purely chemical agency—that he was provided with considerable funds for the purchase of scientific instruments which he was incompe tent to use, and that he resided at Jerez in style for a period of three months at the expense of his principal patron, during which time he lost him half his vineyard's produce through the so-called amontillado which he professed to fabricate turning out