Bodegas Tradición & Gonzalez Byass: The Jerez File (Part 2)

July 1, 2025 By Mike Veseth in Spain, wine, wine history, wine markets Leave a comment

This is the second part of our report on the five very different wineries that Sue and I visited during our brief stay in Andalusia. Click here to read the first half of the story.

Bodegas Tradición and Bodega Gonzalez Byass

We’d like to finish with an exercise in compare and contrast involving the smallest winery we visited (Bodegas Tradición) and the largest (Bodega Gonzalez Byass).

Big barrel rooms and small libraries were featured in both wineries. The barrels are easy to understand. Sherry wine ages in ranks of barrels called soleras, which slowly transform the wine and develop its special character. It is impossible to produce great Sherry any other way.

But before we surveyed the barrels we visited the small rooms at both wineries where records are stored. Time is integral to Sherry production and so is history. They recognize that the company records are important historical documents.

Gonzalez Byass, the largest Sherry producer and the only one still in family hands, was founded in 1835 as a shipper focusing on the British market. You will probably recognize its famous Tio Pepe brand. Like Port and Bordeaux, Sherry’s development was shaped by the fact that export markets could be reached by sea more economically than domestic markets that (until the arrival of trains) required costly and cumbersome land transport. Amazingly, the business has remained in the Gonzalez family through seven generations!

All in the Timing

The roots of Bodegas Tradición go all the way back to 1650 when Bodegas CZ (for the initials of the founder) was formed. The records room was filled with antique ledgers that told the story of the winery and the region. Exports were key here, too. The winery was named supplier to the British crown (1771) even before it received the same honor from the Spanish royal family (1887). One entry (I think it was from the 17th century) detailed exports to China!

Bodegas Tradición did not have a smooth journey through the Sherry industry’s booms and busts and was re-founded in 1998 as Bodegas Tradición CZ by Joaquín Rivero, who located the winery in an old building in the historic center of Jerez. It was, as I understand it, an attempt to revive the producer and rescue a particular way of making Sherry and the old soleras necessary for that process. Production is small both because the firm is relatively small (especially compared with Gonzalez Byass) and also because so much volume is lost a little at a time to the “angel’s share” during the long aging process. Time is the essence of Bodegas Tradición.

The Gonzalez Byass campus, Bodega Tio Pepe, sits prominently on a hill, next door to the cathedral and just below the Alcázar de Jerez de la Frontera and Mezquita. Production is spread over a number of big buildings and there are tourist and hospitality facilities along with the Hotel Bodega Tio Pepe, where Sue and I stayed.

From Jerez to the World

It is interesting to compare and contrast the two producers by visiting their retail wine shops. Tradición radiates age and time. The Sherry wines and brandies are old and older (and almost insanely old) and command prices that are high when you think about it in bottle terms and cheap when you consider the time, history, and quality of the experience. It reminds me of a lunch we had in Seville at Bar Casa Plácido, where the proprietor was so proud to serve Tradición wines.

The wine shop of Bodega Tio Pepe is larger and brighter and reveals the company’s depth in Andalusia and breadth across Spain and increasingly around the world. The wall of wine and spirits brands from around the world (and the corresponding list you can find online) is really astonishing. Just as ships once set out from Seville and Cadiz to explore he world, Gonzalez Byass has charted a global course: Austria, Australia, Chile, Spain, France, Hungary, Italy, New Zealand, and South Africa. And that is just for wine. You can add the U.K. if you include spirits such as a Sherry-cask-aged gin!

Final Thoughts

The ships that forged Spain’s Age of Discovery set sail from this region (Seville and Cadiz). There is much exploration going on here now. Bodegas Tradición explores the past without losing touch with the present. Bodega Gonzalez Byass embraces the world of wine while firmly rooted in family and Jerez.

I thought I knew a bit about Sherry before we visited Jerez and maybe I did, but there is so much to learn and we love learning! But maybe the most surprising thing we discovered here is this: I have always seen Sherry as a special wine, something different from others in terms of both production and sensory perception. And it is unique.

But from an economic perspective, the Sherry industry is not so different from wine in other parts of Spain and the world. The booms and busts that the five Sherry houses we visited have navigated and the very different courses they have charted to their current success provide lessons that apply far beyond the Sherry Triangle.

Five Faces of Andalusia Wine (Part 1)

June 17, 2025 By Mike Veseth in Spain, wine, wine history, wine markets Leave a comment

Sue and I recently spent more than two weeks in Andalusia, Spain, about half of the time exploring the wine scene and the other half enjoying the region’s history and culture.

We covered a lot of territory and were a little surprised that the dominant feature of the landscape was not grape vines as you might expect, but olive trees! As far as the eye can see. Olives everywhere! We even visited an olive oil cooperative and learned that the main factors that lead an olive oil cooperative to either success or failure are much the same as those we observe in wine cooperatives.

But we came for wine. We tried to pick wineries that were very different from one another and so would together give us a more complete picture of this fascinating wine region. Let us tell you a bit about each one over the next two weeks.

Bodegas Alvear

Our first stop was Bodegas Alvear in the Montilla-Moriles region near Cordoba. The wines made here are much like Sherry but of course cannot be called Sherry because they are not in the Jerez D.O. (Confusingly, Pedro Ximenez grapes from Montilla can be made into Sherry wine by producers located in Jerez. PX grows really well in Montilla but struggles in Jerez.)

Alvear makes up for the absence of a famous appellation by having a famous brand. Indeed, Alvear is both the oldest winery in this area and one of the most respected in all of Spain. I haven’t seen many Montilla wines at local shops, but I have seen the Alvear PX Reserva, which I remember as the very first Robert Parker 100-point wine we tried (the current release is rated 98 points).

We had an excellent tour and tasting at Alvear and were impressed with the combination of tradition and innovation that we found there. The tradition is obviously the classic wine styles such as Fino and the PX. The innovation takes many forms. Important today is the development of non-fortified wines such as the refreshingly light El Rebate we sampled at the tasting and the complex red Palacio Quemado shown here that we were served a couple of nights before at La Montillana restaurant in Cordoba.

But maybe the most important innovation is the Alvear Vermut. Alvear is one of the pioneers in making Vermouth from Sherry-style wines. Alvear’s Vermut is popular (it was listed as “The Classic” at a Vermut bar we visited in Madrid) and has opened up opportunities for other producers in the region.

Bodegas Williams & Humbert

Bodegas Williams & Humbert occupies a vast industrial space on the edge of Jerez. The barrel room sort of takes your breath away. This is the home of famous brands such as Dry Sack (the go-to aprétif of White House dinners in the 1950s) and Canasta Cream Sherry among others.

We were there because of the memory of a dinner we had 20 years ago at a restaurant called La Madonnina del Pescatore in Senegalia, Italy. At the end of a fabulous seafood dinner we were served glasses of Don Zoilo PX. This was probably our first PX and it simply blew us away. You know how some wines are impossible to forget? That was the Don Zoilo PX and it is made by Williams & Humbert. We had to visit.

(Aside: According to their website, La Madoninna del Pescatore no longer serves the Don Zoilo PX. They offer a Williams & Humbert PX instead. The PX seems to have stood the test of time!)

We toured the winery and tasted through the wines. It was quite an experience because each of the many brands and styles and different aging treatments. Every time we thought we’d found our favorite we encountered something new and delicious. This is not a bad problem to have.

It was at Williams & Humbert that we first saw the light wood barrels surrounded by traditional black barrels. The black casks age Sherry (many of them were signed by celebrities including all four Beatles when they visited the winery years ago). The light wood barrels also contained Sherry, but the point was to condition the wood for eventual use in production of Sherry-barrel-aged Whiskey.

It was also at Williams & Humbert that we first realized the significance of Brandy to many Sherry producers. Sherry is a fortified wine, so stills are a common sight. Brandy is often produced in addition to the spirits that fortify Sherry. This Brandy is popular in Spain and other countries including Mexico and the Philippines. The Brandy market is so important for Williams & Humbert that the company is actually co-owned by a Spanish family and a Philippine firm that markets the Brandy there.

It is interesting to consider how a sip of PX at a restaurant on the Adriatic coast could lead us to such an interesting experience.

Bodegas Lustau

It wasn’t hard to convince us to visit Bodegas Lustau, which is a well-known brand in the United States. The bottles and labels are attractive, the wines are full of character, and the products are well-priced and widely available. Lustau was always on our list and our Jerez friends encouraged us as well because a visit to Lustau gives a glimpse of Sherry history and tradition. Our tour started in a conference room overlooking the big barrel cathedral. That’s got to be one of the best office views in the world.

Originally a family business, Lustau has weathered the booms and busts of the Sherry game. In 1990 it was acquired by the Luis Caballero Group, a Spanish family-owned company specializing in wine and spirits. With strong backing, Lustau has both expanded its Sherry business and also ventured into Vermut, Brandy de Jerez, vinegar, and Sherry casks for spirits.

The Lustau wines are impressive and we spent a very happy hour barrel-tasting with our host. But what I remember best is the importance of branding. Building the Lustau brand was important right from the start, especially in the export market. Indeed, Lustau was better known abroad than in Spain until recently. The advent of Sherry-based Lustau Vermut, wildly popular in Spain and now available in the U.S., too, brought the brand to the attention of the Spanish market.

I guess the success of Lustau Vermut shows that the company hasn’t lost its ability to create and develop successful brands. The winery hosts about 10,000 visitors a year, 40 percent from Spain and 60 percent from abroad.

Last week we analyzed the strategies that Andalusian wineries use to broaden and deepen their businesses while avoiding the boom-bust cycle. It is interesting to see these strategies at work at Alvear, Williams & Humbert, and Lustau. It is even more interesting to see the power of brands in this industry. Each of these wineries has succeeded in part by creating and maintaining powerful brand identities, some with global reach.

How Sherry Went from Boom to Bust to Today

June 10, 2025 By Mike Veseth in Spain, wine, wine history, wine markets 1 Comment

We published an article here at The Wine Economist a few years ago, asking “Can Sherry be the Next Big Thing?” “Probably not,” we said. “But it doesn’t have to be. It is a timeless wine waiting to be re-discovered by a new generation of wine drinkers.”

I’m glad we didn’t go too far in our assessment of Sherry’s potential back in 2017 because Sherry producers who have been around for a while are cautious about booms because they know they can be followed by busts. That was one message we heard when we met with César Saldaña, the President of the Sherry D.O. Consejo Regulador, the industry organization that makes and enforces the rules that govern Sherry production and promotes the product, too.

A Sherry boom? Not a good idea, he told us. Sherry has a history of booms and busts, and what it needs today is stability to build a foundation for the future.

UK Supermarket Boom

Sherry’s most recent boom occurred in the 1980s when British supermarket wine sales were growing so fast. Britain has long been the key export market for Sherry wines, and the surge in sales of inexpensive private label Sherry combined with government subsidies to encourage exports caused the industry to explode. How big was the boom? Vineyard area increased from about 7000 hectares to over 20,000 hectares!

Booms are often followed by busts, and Sherry sales have fallen. The crisis came in 1986-87 when Spain entered the European Union and the flow of subsidies suddenly dried up. Sherry’s diminished reputation made it difficult to command prices necessary to sustain production without government assistance.

It has taken a while, but vineyard areas are finally back in the 6000 to 7000 hectare range again. Consolidation has occurred, with the large bodegas growing and acquiring brands as the number of independent producers has fallen. Cooperatives, which account for about half of total production according to my sources, sell young base wines to the big bodegas where they are aged, blended, bottled, and sold.

Sherry Crystal Ball

What does the future look like for the Sherry industry in this market environment? We will answer this question in more detail next week, when we look at five specific wineries and their particular strategies. But here are some general patterns we observed.

Innovation: Think about Sherry as an ingredient and not just a beverage. Sherry-based cocktails were featured in that Financial Times article about Sherry’s chic appeal, for example, and a popular drink hereabouts is Fino and Sprite or 7-Up. It is called Rebujito.

And then there is Croft Twist Fino Spritz, a delicious white spritz wine that blends Fino Sherry with elder flower, lemon, and mint cordials, along with sparkling water. It reminded us a little of the White Port Spritz drinks we enjoy in Porto. Finally, Sherry can be the base of delicious Vermut (Vermouth) drinks, which is another growing category.

Non-fortified wines. If fortified wines have plateaued, as they have in Spain and also in Portugal, attention naturally shifts to unfortified wines, which are seen as an opportunity for both growth and diversification. As noted last week, Sue and I found the red wines we sampled (made by Alvear and Gonzalez Byass wineries) more interesting than the white wines we sampled with a couple of exceptions (Forlong Blanco from Cadiz, for example).

Spanish brandy. Sherry wines are fortified with spirits, so stills are everywhere in the Sherry Triangle, and brandy production is common. Spanish brandy is popular both in Spain and in the Spanish-speaking world. In fact, I think brandy from Jerez is probably better known and more popular in some places than the region’s signature Sherry wine. It is an important source of revenue for the Sherry producers we met.

Sherry barrels. Forget the wine. Sometimes it is the barrel customers want. If you have ever toured a Sherry house you know that the barrels are painted black, so when you see a bunch of unpainted barrels they really stand out. And we saw many of these barrels because whiskey aged in Sherry barrels is a popular beverage these days. Sherry firms age their wines for a period in new barrels that they profitably sell to whiskey makers. It is interesting that some consumers who would probably not drink Sherry wine want to enjoy Sherry’s influence in this way.

Wine tourism. Jerez is a popular destination with good tourist facilities. The sherry bodegas receive about 240,000 visitors today. The region hosts many fairs and festivals and, when we were there, MotoGP races at the Jerez circuit that once was home to Formula One competitions. You can find Jerez wine tours out of both Seville to the north and Cadiz, a popular cruise ship port, to the south. Many Sherry houses have ambitious wine tours and hospitality programs with restaurants and even hotels (we stayed at the Hotel Bodega Tio Pepe, for example, and dined at the winery’s Pedro Nolasco Restaurant).

Multi-region wine businesses. Finally, we have noticed in Spain (and in Italy, too) the tendency of wine businesses to build a portfolio of wineries across different regions. The ability to fill efficient production and distribution pipelines with a variety of products can be an advantage if done well. The addition of Sherry to a Spanish wine portfolio makes as much sense today as linking Port and Sherry producers together (think Sandeman or Osborne) did at an earlier stage.

César Saldaña is right. Sherry doesn’t need to boom (and bust) to succeed. There are many ways for the industry to broaden and deepen without supercharging sales. Next week, we will examine several case studies to see what paths individual producers are taking to move beyond boom and bust.

Field Notes from a Visit to the Sherry Triangle

June 3, 2025 By Mike Veseth in Spain, wine, wine history, wine markets, wine tourism 1 Comment

Sue and I recently returned from three weeks in Spain. We spent a few days in Madrid (where we dropped in at FEV General Assembly meetings), but most of the time in Andalusia, home of Sherry and Montilla-Moriles wines. Great wines, good food, and welcoming people. We soaked up a lot of information (and wine, too).

This is the first of a brief series of Wine Economist columns about our experiences and what they tell us about these wines and their wine market more generally. We begin with a “field notes” column, a kaleidoscopic collection of observations meant to give you a sense of what we saw and heard on the wine road in Spain. More focused articles will follow shortly.

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Sherry, which is fortified, is from the Jerez-Xérès-Sherry region and made from Palomino, Pedro Ximénes, and Moscatel grapes. The Sherry Triangle is the name given to the Jerez D.O., the only region where true Sherry wines are made. The “triangle” is roughly defined by lines connecting the cities of Jerez de la Frontera, Sanlucar de Barrameda, and El Puero de Santa Maria, where the wineries are located.

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People like to say that wine is made in the vineyard, but in the case of Sherry, what happens in the cellar is key. It is difference in cellar processes more than grape quality or variety that determines what type of Sherry will be in your glass. In this regard, Sherry may be more like Champagne and Port.

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About half of our time in Spain was focused on wine; the other half on the history, culture, and people of Andalusia. We visited five wineries chosen to give us a view of the wine industry’s diversity in this region.

Bodegas Williams & Humbert, the producer of Dry Sack, Don Zoilo, Canasta, and other brands.
Bodegas Lustau, whose Sherry wines are widely available in the U.S. market.
Bodega Gonzalez Byass, maker of a wide range of products both in Spain and around the world, including the famous Tío Pepe brand.
Bodegas Tradición, a relatively young winery making very old wines.
Bodegas Alvear in the Montilla-Moriles region near Cordoba. The Montilla wines are kissing cousins of Sherry, but can’t wear the official Sherry seal.

We enjoyed conversations with many wine industry people including Susana Garcia Dolla of OIVE, César Saldaña of the Sherry D.O. Consej0 Regulador, and Mauricio Gonzalez-Gordon of Gonzalez Byass. We benefited from advice from our friend George Sandeman. Many thanks to everyone who hosted us, answered our questions, and helped us get the most out of our visit.

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We usually taste wines with trade groups, not “civilian” consumers, so we were very interested to see what would happen when we accompanied a typical tour group to Bodegas Alvear. We first tasted a light, fruity unfortified white wine and then three of the traditional wines: Fino, Olorosso, and Pedro Ximenez. At the end of the tasting the question was asked: Which ones do you like? All hands went up for the fruity white. Only a few hands were raised for Fino and Olorosso with a few more for the PX.

The wines were great (Alvear is the oldest winery in Montilla and one of the best in Spain). The wines from Montilla-Moriles focus more on Pedro Ximenez, which grows there the best, with similar techniques but they not generally fortified. Very hot temperatures, very ripe grapes, high natural alcohol levels. That’s the story of Montilla.

The fruity white, which is called “El Rebate” after the step at the entrance of a Montilla house, is meant a welcoming gateway to the world of wine. It was a familiar taste to our touring friends and they loved it.

The Fino and Olorosso presented them with unfamiliar tastes, dryer, nutty, without fruit notes. The excellent PX, an Alvear speciality, was really well balanced, but sweeter than our new friends were accustomed too. Sue and I loved it. Most of our friends didn’t understand it or the other traditional wines very well.

The same wines at a trade tasting would probably have an entirely different ranking from the civilian group. We report these results because they help explain why Sherry (and the similar Montilla) wines are unlikely candidates for broad consumption. They are different and it takes a little effort to understand and appreciate them. It is effort well spent, but a barrier nonetheless.

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Sherry is not one specific wine. Many styles, many aging regimes: Fino, Amontillado, Manzanilla, Oloroso, Palo Cortado, Pedro Ximénez. Cream sherry (made sweet by the addition of rectified grape must or, even better, sweet PX wine) is what people think Sherry is, but isn’t. Lucious PX is sweet but balanced. One of the most memorable tastes of the trip was at a Taberna la Montillana in Córdoba where we were served a Bodegas Toro Alba Don PX 1955 at the end of the meal. Amazing.

However, Sherry is often stereotyped as a sticky, sweet apéritif that granny drinks at Christmas, which might be an insult to Sherry, granny, and Christmas! But most Sherry wine produced is dry, the style preferred in Andalusia. It reminds us of the problem that Riesling confronts. Riesling is too sweet, people say before they have even tasted it. But most Riesling that we encounter today is dry or off-dry.

Some Sherry wines are sweet, of course, just as some Riesling wines are sweet. In Sherry’s case the stereotype probably results from very popular and widely distributed brands like Harvey’s Bristol Cream, which are sweet; people generalize from that experience. Getting people to embrace dry Sherry can be as hard as getting them to try dry Riesling.

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Sue and I had an “ah ha” moment at Bodegas Tradición. We were tasting through their wonderful wines. Did we want to try the Cream Sherry? We hesitated (which is not like us). Maybe not, we said. Cream Sherry has a bad reputation (see above). Well, try our Cream Sherry. And it was great, a blend of Amontillado and PX with superb balance. We had to abandon our prejudice. Back home, we bought and enjoyed some Harvey’s, too. Time to review stereotypes for Sherry and more generally!

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As in the Douro Valley, there is a movement in Andalusia to produce more non-fortified wines using the traditional grape varieties. Sue and I were on the lookout for these table wines during our visit and we were a bit surprised by what we found. We expected white wines because Sherry grapes are white. But we were disappointed with the white wines we found. It seems that Palomino does not ready yield really great wines (I am sure there are exceptions because we only had time to taste a few of them.

The red wines we tried surprised us. First came a Palacio Quemado Crianza produced by Bodegas Alvear from an old vine Tempranillo vineyard north of Seville. Distinctive, wonderful with the traditional foods of Córdoba. Then we enjoyed the Finca Moncloa, produced by Gonzalez Byass in the Cadiz region. It is a special project designed to preserve and promote the native Tintilla de Rota grape. The blend of native and international grape varieties was terrific both times, especially with roast lamb.

Wine Economist Flashback: Stumbling into Sherry in Madrid

April 14, 2025 By Mike Veseth in Spain, The Next Big Thing, wine, wine markets 1 Comment

Sue and I are traveling in Spain and one of our goals is to learn more about what’s happening in the Sherry industry. It is our first visit to Andalucia, but not our first exposure to the world of Sherry wines. I thought you might be interested in this “Flashback” column from 2017 that reports on our very successful search for Sherry in Madrid. This flasback might especially timely given a recent Financial Times article on “How Sherry Got Chic Again.”

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Can Sherry Be the Next Big Thing?

The Wine Economist / May 16, 2017

tio Can Sherry be the “Next Big Thing” in wine? I know what you are thinking. Sherry? C’mon! That’ll never catch fire in a big way. And you may be right, but give me a chance to make my case before you close the door on the Sherry cabinet.

One of the things that Sue and I wanted to do during our recent visit to Spain was learn more about Sherry. But the itinerary seemed to work against that. No time to jet south to Jerez de la Frontera in Andaluca, Sherry’s home. We would have to piece together our education in other wine regions. With a little luck and some helpful friends, we managed quite well.

Stumbling on Sherry in Madrid

Madrid is a long way from Jerez, but we found Sherry all around us, suggesting just how much it is a part of Spanish culture. Walking the aisles of the historic San Miguel market near the Plaza Mayor, for example, we stumbled upon a market stall called The Sherry Corner where dozens of different wines were offered by the glass at bargain prices. We had fun trying new Sherry wines and revisiting old favorites.

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The Sherry Corner offers a fun self-guided audio tour of Sherry wines. For €30 you get six glasses of different Sherries in a special carrier, coupons for six matching tapas from various market stalls, and an audio program available in six languages. It is quite a bargain when you do the math and it lets you both get to know the wines, experiment with pairings, and take advantage of the amazing tapas on offer at the market.

We found a completely different experience at the restaurant Zahara de Osborne in the Plaza Santa Ana, which was close by our hotel. The restaurant is owned by the Osborne wine group that is famous for its Sherry wines (you can see the Osborne bull staring down from hilltops all around Spain).

The idea of the restaurant was to bring the food and culture of Andaluca to Madrid. We challenged our waiter to create that experience for us and he did a great job choosing the dishes and helping us with pairings. Gosh, the Fino was delicious with a delicately fried whole fish!

Indigenous Sherry Culture

Not that Madrid does not have its own indigenous Sherry culture. There are Sherry bars in several parts of the city. Friends guided us to one called La Venencia, where the Sherry is served en rama, fresh and unfiltered, right from the barrel, which is a style I like a lot. My university colleague Harry uses La Venencia as his office when he is in Madrid (which is a lot) and he made introductions to José and Gabriel who worked the bar that day.

La Venencia has as much depth and character as the wines that are served there. If you have any pre-conceptions, you must check them at the door and accept the bar for what it is, which is true of Sherry wines, too. And then, well, it is a complete pleasure. Sherry really isn’t like anything else you will ever drink and La Venencia is just the same.

I have seldom been anywhere that was so totally itself and I will always associate that strong impression with the dry Manzanilla Sherry wines we enjoyed at La Venecia. osborne

A Little Help from our Friends

We got a little help from friends at Osborne and Gonzalez Byass wineries in our quest to learn more about Sherry. Santiago Salinas arranged for a tasting of Rare Old Sherries when we visited Osborne’s Montecilla winery in Rioja. These were wines for philosophers and poets. It is stunning to discover what great Sherries can become with time. We were inspired by Santiago’s passion for the wines and, of course, by the wines themselves.

Our visit to Finca Constancia near Toledo was organized around a rather extravagant seminar and tasting of Gonzalez Byass wines ranging from their signature Fino, Tio Pepe, on to a special Tio Pepe en rama bottling, and then carefully and thoroughly all the way through the line-up to the sweet, concentrated Pedro Xeménez.

Marina Garcia, our guide on this Sherry tour, was not afraid to draw out the complexities of the wines, which is great. As I told my audience at the General Assembly, sometimes complicated things need to be understood in complicated ways. Our favorite? We discovered the Palo Cortado Sherry style and it made us think. I love it when a wine does that.

Sherry doesn’t have to complicated … or sweet either, for that matter, although many people put the wines in that category. A chilled bottle of very dry fino or Manzanilla is pretty pure pleasure and will change many minds. But you’ve got to try it yourself to be persuaded and that’s a challenge. constancia

Sherry’s Moment?

If you look at the fundamentals, it is easy to conclude that this could be Sherry’s moment. The wines are great and well-priced. They come in a range of styles that variously make great aperitifs, pair well with food, or help unleash that inner poet. Apparently Sherry works really well as a cocktail base, too. Gotta check that out.

Tourism in Spain is on the rise and Spain’s tapas culture cuisine, which matches up so well with dry Sherry, is increasingly popular. Sherry, as much as any wine I know, is a product of time and place, and wears its authenticity proudly. Authentic, affordable, food-friendly. Aren’t these the things that wine drinkers are looking for today?

Sherry’s burden is its reputation as that sweet old wine that grandma drinks. There is so much more to Sherry for those who pull the cork. If enough curious wine drinkers pull enough corks, perhaps Sherry’s “Next Big Thing” potential can be realized!

Is Sherry going to be the next big thing? Probably not. But it doesn’t have to be. It is a timeless wine waiting to be re-discovered by a new generation of wine drinkers.

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Thanks to everyone who helped us with our Sherry research. Special thanks to Susana, Mauricio, Marina, Santiago, George, Cesar, Greg, Harry, Jensen, Gabriel, and José. Thanks to Sue for these photos of the big Tio Pepe sign in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol, the menu at The Sherry Corner, the rare old Osborne Sherries, and the many hues of the Gonzalez Byass Sherry wines.

Adventures on the China-Spain Wine Trail

December 27, 2023 By Mike Veseth in book reviews, China wine, Spain, wine 2 Comments

The Spanish edition of Cynthia Howson and Pierre Ly’s 2020 book Adventures on the China Wine Trail has just been published by Tolosa Wine Books.

Aventuras en la Ruta del Vino de China

Aventuras en la Ruta del Vino de China is a first-person account of the natural, social, political, and economic forces that shaped the Chinese wine industry and the people who made it all happen. I have always thought of it as the perfect complement to Suzanne Mustacichi’s 2015 best-seller Thirsty Dragon.

Why a Spanish edition of Adventures on the China Wine Trail? I think part of it was personal, which aligns very well with the way that Howson and Ly tell the Chinese wine story. They met Spanish publisher Lluis Tolosa when they were all in China for the Gourmand International Awards ceremonies. He saw an opening for a book that would help Spanish readers understand the Chinese market and the forces driving wine there. Tolosa tells the story in his prologue to the Spanish edition.

Spanish Wine Goes to China

Spain is the third largest producer of wine in the world and is often the largest exporter by volume. Bulk wine sales to other European countries make up much of the trade. Spain ranks #4 on the China wine import table behind France, Chile, and Italy. (Australia ranked higher in this list before China imposed prohibitive tariffs on Aussie wine.)

Spanish producers were early entrants into China and have been key in the growth of that market. Torres China, for example, was founded in 1997 and today imports into China and distributes more than 400 wines from 13 countries including, of course, the wine of Familia Torres but also a list of iconic brands from Spain and around the world.

The giant Spanish wine producer Felix Solis was another early entrant to the Chinese market. It established the Shanghai Félix Solís Winery Corporation in 1998 and, if I can trust my memory, boldly built a facility to accommodate bulk wine imports that was an important factor in the expansion of Spanish wine in China.

Although the Chinese wine market has receded from the peaks of the pre-covid boom years, it remains an important opportunity for Spanish producers in a wine world where opportunities are not thick on the ground.

A Celebration of China and Spain

We wanted to celebrate the China-Spain wine trail with Cynthia and Pierre, but how? Their January 2024 book tour will include stops in many regions of Spain, including Rioja. Sue and I proposed a dinner pairing some Rioja wines we’ve been saving for a good occasion with a Chinese dinner. The pairing makes sense since the Rioja industry was jump-started by French winemakers looking for red wines to replace the Bordeaux wines that were lost to phylloxera. And, of course, China and Bordeaux have a longstanding friendship. Connect the dots and Rioja to China it is!

Pierre and Cynthia prepared some of their favorite dishes from their trips to China and opened a delightful Grace Vineyards traditional method Angelina Brut Reserve 100% Chardonnay sparkling wine from the 2009 vintage. Grace Vineyards is one of China’s top producers and its wines never disappoint.

Sue and I provided the Spanish connection with two Rioja wines: a Marques de Murrieta Finca Ygay Rioja Reserva and Ramon Bilbaos Mirto. We chose the wines to represent two sides of Rioja today. The Finca Ygay is a traditional blend of four grape varieties, with Tempranillo in the lead with 80 percent. The Mirto, on the other hand, is 100 percent Tempranillo.

When Sue and I visited Rioja a few years ago we found that some winemakers were excited to make 100% varietal Rioja wines while others favored a traditional approach. I don’t think we found a consensus in Rioja any more than you might find one in, say, Chianti today about the merits of 100% Sangiovese.

Both Rioja wines paired well with our Chinese meal. Sue likes the rounder Marques de Murrieta best with an eggplant dish and the more structured Ramon Bilbao Mirto with pork belly. The bright acidity of both wines made them easy to pair with the rich Chinese cuisine. It is easy to understand why Spanish wines like these would be popular in China. And Spanish consumers might want to experiment with Chinese-inspired tapas, for example, to match up with their fine wines. China and Spain. Mix and match!

Adventures on the Spain-China wine trail.

Pierre will be in Spain in January to promote the new book and to inform Spanish audiences about the development of the Chinese wine industry. There will be events at bookstores and universities, but the one that I wish I could attend will be at the Marques de Atrio winery.

Why is this particular event so interesting? Because the Spanish winery is owned by ChangYu Pioneer Wine Company, one of China’s most important producers. ChangYu saw the potential for Spanish wine in China and so acquired this historic winery. The Spain-China wine trail is real and Aventuras en la Ruta del Vino de China is a perfect way to begin to understand it.

Flashback: Spanish Wine Challenges & Opportunities

May 31, 2022 By Mike Veseth in Spain, wine, wine markets 2 Comments

I am in virtual Madrid today to talk about the changing global wine market on a program that also includes OIV director general Pau Roca and Dorian Tang of ASC Fine Wine in China. Zoom brings the three of us together from across the global wine map to talk with our on-line audience in Spain, Portugal, and many other places.

Preparing for this talk got me thinking about the lessons I took away from a trip to Spain five years ago for an in-person wine industry meeting in Valladolid. I think the message is still relevant, so I reprint it here in a “flashback” column.

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Wine Economist (April 25, 2017). Sketches of Spain is the title of the 1960 Miles Davis/Gil Evans album that deftly walks the line between classical and jazz genres, with Davis’s virtuosity shining throughout.

Sue and I have recently returned from a visit to Spain, where I spoke at the General Assembly of the Spanish Wine Federation (Federación Española del Vino or FEV), so Spain and Spanish wine are on my mind and I have been puzzling over how to write about our experiences and all that we learned. Such a big country! So many impressions! The Miles Davis album solved the puzzle.

Davis and Evans gave us a few powerful sketches of Spain and its music, not a detailed musical portrait, which would be impossible in the context of a ’60s-era 33-rpm vinyl recording. A perfect choice! In this and the next several weekly columns I will try to provide sketches of the Spanish wine industry, which I hope you will find useful, leaving a more detailed portrait for another time and place.

Sketch 1: The Spanish Wine Supertanker

They say that it is not easy to turn around a big ship because of all the momentum it has to continue on its path and this might be a good metaphor for Spain. Spain is certainly big when it comes to wine. Spain has the largest area of vineyards of any country in the world and is the third largest wine-producing nation (after Italy and France). Spain produces nearly 70 percent more wine by volume than the United States, which is number four in the global wine table.

The Spanish wine industry has devoted enormous effort to changing wine market direction, investing in more productive vineyards planted to grape varieties like Tempranillo that are more attractive to global wine buyers, and in new or updated production facilities.

The wineries we visited have made the transition and are now sailing in the right direction. As I said to the General Assembly audience, it seems to me that Spain has all the pieces in place to succeed in the new global wine market environment that has emerged, where value matters much more than sheer volume. I am an optimist about Spanish wine. But I am also a realist …

Sketch 2: Breaking the Glass Ceiling

Improving Spanish wine is one thing (a good thing!), but achieving greater success in the global market is another because of reputational momentum. Spain’s wine reputation has not caught up with its reality in many markets. Citing data from a Nielsen Company survey of U.S. on-premises wine drinkers (thanks to Danny Brager for his help), I noted that Spain was stuck under a “glass ceiling” in terms of consumer perception.

Italy and France — these are the countries that American diners think of first when they consider imported wines. Spain, despite its status as the third largest producer, ranks far below with perception roughly on a par with Australia, Argentina, and Chile and only a bit above tiny New Zealand, which is number 14 on the world wine production table, lodged between Romania and Hungary.

Spanish producers would love to break through the glass ceiling to achieve market status of Italy and France, but — let’s face it — everyone wants to do that.

A more interesting question for Spain, I proposed, is why it does not rank higher above Argentina, Chile, and New Zealand. Do they make more wine than Spain? Better wine? Do they have better generic market promotion programs? The answer is no in each case. What do these much smaller countries have that Spain does not that allows them to punch so far above their weight? This got my audience thinking, which is always my intent.

Sketch 3: Spain at the Crossroads

Hard thinking is necessary because Spain’s wine industry is at a cross roads of sorts. A graph of domestic vs export sales of Spanish wine shows that an important line has been crossed. Domestic wine consumption continues to fall in Spain as in other Old World producer countries. The opponent is not so much France and Italy as spirits and beer and changing consumer habits generally.

Wine exports are rising and now exceed domestic sales. This is important since the industry would be in crisis if exports did not replace lost domestic purchases, but that doesn’t mean that slowly losing your most biggest market is not a cause for concern. It was rare for us to meet a wine producer in Spain who had as much as 50 percent domestic sales.

Global markets are congested and competition for high value sales will only increase when Brexit’s full impacts are finally felt. Reversing the decline of the domestic wine market is Spain’s next big challenge.

Fortunately, I think there is an realistic opportunity for domestic wine sales growth. Spain was hit very hard by the global financial crisis and the austerity policies that followed in Europe. Only now, ten years after the crisis, is Spain’s gross domestic product approaching its pre-crisis level. A lost decade! No wonder exports have been the focus.

But growth has picked up in the Spanish economy and optimism is in the air, something Sue and I could feel on the streets of big cities and small towns alike. Beer is a tough opponent, but perhaps this is Spanish wine’s moment at home as well as abroad! More to follow in the weeks ahead.

Thank You Notes

Sue and I would like to send out big “thank you” notes to Pau, Susana, José Luis, and Eduardo and everyone else at FEV and to all the people we met at the General Assembly in Valladolid.

FEV organized a series of winery visits for us in the two weeks following the General Assembly (I will report on this fieldwork in future columns) and we would like to thank everyone who took the time to meet with us and share their stories. Here is a list of the wineries we visited:

Goodbye Columbus? Three Variations on a Barcelona-Based Wine Tourism Theme

June 13, 2017 By Mike Veseth in Spain, wine, wine tourism 1 Comment

kvesp1089p The monument to Christopher Columbus at the foot of the Las Ramblas promenade must be one of the most-viewed sights in very scenic Barcelona. Standing atop his tall column, Columbus points to the sea, an act that makes sense both for Columbus himself and for Barcelona, a city that has long turned its face to the sea and to the international influences that it provides.

Columbus points to the sea — that’s what people think he is doing. But I have another, somewhat less literal theory. I think that he is really pointing, in a vague and perhaps somewhat misguided fashion, away from Barcelona’s bright city lights and toward the not-too-distant vineyards — to the Penedés and Priorat wine regions. Tourists, he is saying, you need to visit wineries and learn about Spanish wine!

My evidence? Wishful thinking, of course (reinforced by a poor sense of direction), but more significantly this fact: if you walk down the stairs in the base of the Columbus’s column you will find not a maritime museum as you might expect but a wine tourism center, there established to help you enjoy winery visits in this region.

Visitors to Barcelona really should make time to visit wineries — and many thousands of them do. Columbus was busy during our visit, so we relied upon FEV, the Spanish Wine Federation, to organize our itinerary. Here are three case studies that show different sides of wine tourism in this part of Spain.

Arte Nouveau Cava at Codorníu

History is an important part of any visit to Codorníu-Raventos. Josep Ravenos was the first to make a Spanish sparkling wine using the traditional method and it is a leading producer of Cava wine today.

Codorní receives about 80,000 guests each year and most of them begin their visit in the extravagant arte nouveau hall that you see here (the exterior architecture is just as fascinating and unique). The tour makes good use of the beautiful gardens, which hold many delights including a fascinating wine museum in another striking arte nouveau building.

We met with the head winemaker, who was excited help us understand Cava today and to show us the lab where he experiments with micro-fermentations in a constant effort to raise quality and draw out new expressions of Cava. It was an intense and fascinating visit.

Take the Frexinet Cava Train

The architecture is distinctive and historic at Freixenet, but what’s inside the building (and underground, too) was more the point here. We walked down, down, down — deep underground — to the miles of tunnels where Cava was stored for second-fermentation in the bottle for many years.

Like most of the 90,000 visitors who come here each year, Sue and I boarded a small train to tour the tunnels — if you have visited Champagne you may have taken a similar ride there. One of our stops was at the yeast lab — Freixenet believes that their distinctive yeast variety is one key to the unique quality of their wines and so they put much effort into yeast research. Fascinating.

A special tasting was set for us with Pedro Bonet, head of the Freixenet winery family and President of the Cava DO. The goal of the exercise was to show us the enormous diversity of Cava and it was an eye-opening experience. Cava isn’t one thing or two, but a whole spectrum of tastes and aromas. Delicious!

Both Cava winery visits impressed us with the fact that while Cava is a product that uses traditional winemaking techniques, it is also constantly changing both to improve quality, develop new expressions of the wine, and to achieve more efficient production. The market for sparkling wines is very competitive — both among Spanish producers and between them and international rivals. Robots and machines now replace workers where possible for routine jobs, freeing human creativity for higher tasks.

There was much more to see and do at Freixenet, but we had to move on. Lunch was waiting at our next stop!

The Torres Experience

wineday One of the brochures we found at the wine tourist center at the base of the Columbus monument was for Miguel Torres. “Wine Day at Torres Winery” presents a number of options for Barcelona tourists including a seven hour guided bus tour with stops at Torres, Jean Leon and Saint Sadurni d’Anoia wineries for €71 (children under 8 ride free) or an 8 hour guided bus tour with stops at Torres, Montserrat (with tastings of traditional liqueurs), and a tour of scenic Stiges for €63.

Not everyone likes a bus tour so train and auto options are also on offer. Take the train from Barcelona to Vilfranca del Penendés, for example, then a shuttle to the nearby Torres winery for a visit, tasting, and return trip with a tour of the scenic village. The trip lasts about 5 hours and costs just €15. I think it would be very pleasant way to spend a day riding the train, seeing the countryside and enjoying the wine experience, too.

There are many options for Torres wine tourists with their own transportation, which you can view at the Club Torres website. Our tour of Torres began with lunch at the winery’s Restaurant Mas Rabell, which features a daily set menu of traditional cuisine paired with Torres wines, of course. What a great way to taste the wines! We enjoyed chatting with Miguel Torres, who had attended my FEV talk in Valladolid and asked the toughest questions.

Then we toured the Mas La Plana vineyard and winery with a winemaker. The vineyard, planted to Cabernet Sauvignon vines, redefined the idea of wine in this region and the Mas La Plana wine, which has its own winery, raised the bar, too. The tour stressed quality, innovation, and sustainability.

Torres, Freixenet and Codorníu are three case studies of wineries that have invested in wine tourism and are gaining the benefits, both for themselves and their communities. They are great role models for other ventures around the world.

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Goodbye Columbus and Barcelona, too. Sue and I loved visiting the city and learned a lot at our winery visits. Thanks to everyone we met for their kindness and hospitality.

Sketches of Spain: State-of-the-Art Wine Tourism Does More than Sell Wine

June 7, 2017 By Mike Veseth in Spain, wine, wine tourism 1 Comment

pagos Wine tourism is no longer about just selling wine. Wineries understand that it is a way to build or strengthen a brand and to create brand ambassadors. The United Nations World Tourism Organization Wine Tourism initiative goes further . The UNWTO proposes that wine tourism is or can be a set of rich experiences that use wine to connect history, culture, tradition, and cuisine in a way that links the global tourism market to distinctive local environments.

The best wine tourism experiences, like the best tourism experiences generally, surprise, delight, inform and sometimes inspire and transform. That’s a powerful force. I guess that’s why wine tourism is one of the fastest growing segments of the wine industry.

Sue and I encountered several state-of-the-art wine tourism programs during our recent FEV-sponsored visit to Spain. Here are sketches of three of the most memorable to give you a sense of what’s on offer in this dynamic wine nation. Come back next week for three more case studies.

More than a Museum

You travel to Morales de Toro by passing through acre after acre of century-old goblet-trained Tinto de Toro (the local variety of Tempranillo) vines. What a sight! When you get there you are drawn to the Pagos Del Rey Wine Museum, which is located in the building that once housed the local cooperative winery and radiates the sense of its utilitarian origins.

Most of the wine museums I have experienced are built around collections of old equipment, and this is true here as well. Both the garden and the museum itself have these displays. What gets your attention, however, is the main hall, which features the double row of concrete tanks (see photo above) that was the hard-working part of the winery. Interactive exhibits stand between the rows, but the real fun begins when you round the corner and enter the first tank.

A video kicks on a you quickly realize that you are actually in the tank as the grapes are loaded in and fermentation takes place over and around you (interrupted by periodic pump-overs). Each of the other tanks presents its own video that explains the vineyard and winery process until you reach the end, which immerses you in the local harvest festival.

This might be the most interesting wine museum we’ve ever visited in the way that all the senses are engaged and linked to both the wines but also local culture and tradition. No wonder so many wine tourists make there way here each year (click here to take a virtual tour right now). Congratulations to the Felix Solis group, one of Spain’s most important wine companies, for creating this small treasure, which seems to tick all the UNWTO boxes so well.

A Monastery with a Michelin Star

A completely different experience at Abadia Retuerta and its associated hotel LeDomaine, which are located just outside the Ribera del Duero zone (Vega Sicilia is just down the road, so it is a good neighborhood). This is a very ambitious luxury wine tourism project of Swiss pharmaceutical group Novartis. The hotel, with its Michelin-rated Refectorio restaurant, is housed in a restored 12th century monastery, which Spanish friends tell me was in ruins before the project began.

The careful restoration preserved a sense of the place while upgrading amenities (including a spa) to appeal to luxury wine tourists. The chapel feels like what it once was and the cloisters have that quiet sensibility that makes them special. The restaurant is in the old refectory and makes dining there an experience that is about more than food.

Sue and I enjoyed one of the set dinner menus that sought inspiration in local ingredients and traditions. We got very lucky on the wine as the Novartis board had met there the day before and we helped finish off some of the magnums that they had enjoyed with their meal.

It is hard to stop thinking about the hotel and restaurant, but the wine side is special too. The wine tourism experiences are mainly organized around the various old vineyards with e-bike, horseback and 4×4 transportation modes all available.

The total package — vineyards, winery, hotel, restaurant, and spa — is quite spectacular. A tip of the hat to Novartis for seeing the potential of this place making such an important investment in the wine tourism future of this region.

Compare and Contrast

We left Abadia del Retuerta and set our gps for Elciego in the Rioja region, stopping along the way in Burgos for lunch and a tour of the famous cathedral. Our destination was Marqués de Riscal, the oldest wine producer in Rioja, and its famous hotel, which rises above the winery at the top of the hill.

The main hotel structure was designed by architect Frank Gehry, all bright colors and unexpected angles. Most of the hotel rooms and the spa are found in a more conventional building adjacent to the Ghery structure and over-looking a vineyard block. It is quite a place and, in a funny way, its sharp contrast with Spanish tradition serves to bring out some of the features of the small village on the other side of the road (especially the church, I think).

Down the hill from the hotel you find the historic winery, which produces 10 million bottles of wine a year (65% for export) and receives about 80,000 visitors. Wine tourism is well organized here with a large public relations staff and an excellent program that takes visitors from the original 1858 building on through the winery ending at bright and colorful tasting room and gift shop area. The brief video that summarizes the main messages of the winery and tour was one of the best of its type we have seen.

We got a real sense of Rioja wine history at Marqués de Riscal, a winery that lives up very well to the goals of the UNWTO wine tourism initiative. It promotes wine, but does much more, creating jobs in the hospitality industry, drawing attention to the region, its culture and history. That’s what wine tourism today is all about.

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Thanks to Susana and FEV for inviting us to Spain and to everyone who welcomed us to Pago del Rey, Abadia del Retuerta, and Marqués de Riscal. Come back next week for three more case studies of wine tourism in Spain.

Can Sherry Be the Next Big Thing?

May 16, 2017 By Mike Veseth in Spain, The Next Big Thing, wine, wine markets 4 Comments

Stumbling on Sherry in Madrid

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Indigenous Sherry Culture

I have seldom been anywhere that was so totally itself and I will always associate that strong impression with the dry Manzanilla Sherry wines we enjoyed at La Venecia. osborne

A Little Help from our Friends

Sherry’s Moment?

Is Sherry going to be the next big thing? Probably not. But it doesn’t have to be. It is a timeless wine waiting to be re-discovered by a new generation of wine drinkers.

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