1876 Facts About Sherry by Henry Vizetelly

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Facts ahout Sheny.

Beyond rises tlie wide,light, and airyBodega dela Luz,built ona steep slope,and having three tiers of vaults,used chiefly as sjjirit- stores, at the farther end. Close at hand,and nigh to where the several processes of cleansing, steaming,and watering the casksare being carried on,some men are determining the capacity of the newly-made butts, which, as Senor Domecq does not approve ofthe gauging system,is done by filling the casks with water. Should a butt be found to contain even a gallon more than its proper quantity,it is allowed to pass, but the smallest deficiency leads to the cask being altered by removing the hoops and replacing a particular stave by a slightly larger one. Bound three sides ofthe adjoining cooperage runs an arcade, under the shade of which scores of men are busy as bees trimming,placing, and plugging the staves, hammering the iron hoops into form and punching holes in them, and adroitly putting the portly butts together. Senor Domecq's finest wines are stored in a bodega facing his shipping cellar. Among the numerous samples we here tasted was some fine amontillado which had been on a solera for five- and-twenty years, and had acquired an exceedingly dry and highly tonical flavour. A wine from the Macharnudo vineyard, fifty years of age,and ofthe robust oloroso type,was remarkable for body and roundness. Another wine, three-quarters of a century old, proved excessively pungent; but we were assured that, after being in bottle for about five years,it would become as soft as oil. The wine on which Senor Domecc| most prides himself is one belonging to a solera dating back to 1730— nearly a century and a-half ago—of which only eight of the original twenty-five casks remain. These butts are very rarely drawn from, stiU their contents gradually decrease through evaporation, and from time to time some very fine old wine has to be added to them. Theliquid proved to be a veritable essence, very deep in colour, of an oleaginous-hke fulness, and a pun gency of flavour that asserted itselfthe instant the winetouched the lips. The alcoholic strength of this venerable wine has been periodically tested, and for a considerable period has remained