1876 Facts About Sherry by Henry Vizetelly

68

Facts about'Sherry.

of the gi-apes of this vineyard are picked until late in the season, in order that they may be thoroughly matm-ed. Even thenthey are exposed to the srm for a longer time than is customary with grapes from other viaeyards. Athousand butts of this wine,its average strength indicating 36 deg. of proof spirit, are stored here unmixed with any other vintage. Erom the Constancia bodega we passed through a narrow triangular cotu-tyard into the Bodega de los Ciegos, holding some 1,200 biitts of very fine wine. One sample that we tasted was pale but remarkably brilliant in colour, and had something of the character of man- zanilla about it. The wine from the A.B. vineyard,the soleras of which are kept here, was equally pale and bright. It had, moreover,a fine,fresh,delicate flavour,leaving behind it a shght and pleasant bitter-ahnond taste,in addition to which it exhaled a peculiarly rich aroma. In the adjoining Bodega vieja, the original cellar of the firm (a comparatively sijiall structure with a low blackened roof), we ran through the scales of what Senor Gonzalez terms his"piano," meaning by this twenty-one selected butts of wine produced in a vineyard owned by Senor Eomero Valdespino. Eor upwards of twenty years the firm have purchased the entire produce of this vineyard, the mosto of which is remarkably rich and sweet, and yields a wine of much distinction. In 1853 Senor Gonzalez commenced to set aside a butt of this wine after it was a certain number of years old, a practice continued every year up to the present time. He expresses himself confident that in every instance the wine has had less than 1 per cent,of spirit added to it; and yet when tested at five years old it showed 27 deg. of'' proof spirit, at ten years 28 deg., at fifteen years 30 deg.,at twenty years 33 deg., and at twenty-five years 36 deg. This gradual increase of its alcoholic strength can only have arisen from the conversion of its saccharine into sj)irit, combined with the evaporation of its watery parts,and the consequent concen tration ofthe wine. Tasting the samples,wefound the youngest delicate, and of a certain freshness of flavour which gradually became more tonical as the wines advanced in years until about