On the sherry trail with a Jerez city break
- Peregryn travel writers
- Jan 29
- 7 min read
It is known as one of our fustier tipples, a bottle of which is normally found lurking at the back of the drinks cabinet, only to see the light of day when grandma wants an aperitif or there is trifle to be made.
But sherry has quietly been shaking off its traditional image in recent years. Head to a London bar and you could well find it served in a cocktail, chefs have long been using this fortified wine as a secret ingredient and in Spain, you’ll find earnest hipsters sipping dry fino at dedicated sherry bars on a Saturday night.
The key to sherry’s newfound appeal is its variety. It is a lot more than a sweetened digestif. Fresh, crisp fino and manzanilla are ideal with fish, golden amontillados perfectly accompany risotto, rich, aged oloroso pairs with both game and aged cheese, while syrupy Pedro Ximenez is best enjoyed with dessert.
As I sip on an oloroso, served in a test tube, I am inclined to believe that sherry really has gone full hipster, and that it is not just the drink, but also Jerez, the city where it was created, that is shaking off its fuddy-duddy image.
If you’re wondering where to eat in Jerez de la Frontera, T22 restaurant has the quality to back up its quirky serving style. Chef Angel Taboada has taken skills learnt in kitchens across Europe to create a menu celebrating Jerez, and in particular, Romany cuisine.
“Gypsies make up about five per cent of the population here, but we’re not segregated. In Jerez gypsies are teachers and lawyers, even chefs,” he explained.
His own grandmother was Romany and he honours her heritage with hearty stews and ingredients ranging from rabbit to wild herbs and fresh-caught Atlantic fish. It’s simply one of the best restaurants in Jerez and Taboada’s glorious tasting menu, think fresh-caught prawn and tomato soup, sole and bitter Jerez orange, and foie with local mushrooms and shallots, features a different sherry pairing for each dish, hence how I came to be sipping oloroso from a test tube, one of six served with my food.
Fortunately for me, T22 is part of the five-star Casa Palacio Maria Luisa hotel, where I’m staying. As the only five-star hotel in the centre of Jerez, it has made quite an impression on the city since it opened in 2019, elevating the heart of the city to Seville levels of glamour.
And just as a new generation of drinkers has discovered the charms of sherry, so have travellers discovered the riches of this atmospheric wine city.
Jerez is one of the only places in the world where you can discover wineries without having to leave the city and head to a vineyard. And if you’re wondering what to do in Jerez – besides drinking sherry! – the wealthy sherry barons of centuries past had a taste for horsemanship, leading to the creation of the Royal Andalusian School of Equestrian Art, where you can see amazing dressage performances, and the city is also one of the three cradles of flamenco, along with Cadiz and Seville’s Triana district. The sound of strumming guitars floats from the large Santiago gitano quarter and in tabanco bars women beat out furious tempos and guitarists sing in lamenting tones.
Where to stay in Jerez de la Frontera
When Madrid businesswoman Marisa C. Azcárate, moved to Jerez she promptly fell in love with the Casa Palacio Maria Luisa, a grand dame of the 19th Century, once home to Jerez aristocracy before becoming a high-society private club.
It was a three-year labour of love to turn it into the hotel where a doorman in a top hat waves you through to a foyer of black and white marble with elegant gold touches, enveloped in the scent of orange blossom.
The typical Andalusian courtyard has been glassed over to create a light-filled atrium and there are works of art as varied as an iron palm tree by Seville artist Fernando Oriol and colourful dream-like paintings by Madrid-based Rafael Macarrón.
Each room is individually decorated, with four-poster beds, plush marble bathrooms and period mouldings juxtaposed with contemporary patterned wallpaper. There is a plunge pool on the roof and, perhaps my favourite addition, a secret garden, where you can sip drinks at the golden bar in perfect quiet, right in the centre of the city.
The history of sherry
The hotel is only my first step into the past of this one-great city, funded by the wealth of its liquid gold. In the 18th century, sherry made up 13 per cent of all Spain’s exports. It was a gentleman’s trade, overseen by the so-called sherry barons, largely of English, Scottish and Irish descent, who had set up shop in the Andalusian city.
Fortifying wine had started out as a way to make sure barrels didn’t spoil when ships set sail to discover the New World. Britons got a taste for it when Sir Francis Drake raided the port of Cadiz in 1587 and brought home thousands of barrels of sherry from Jerez, neighbouring the port.
The narrow streets today are still liberally peppered with bodegas. These wineries in Jerez are cathedrals to the art of sherry making, their walls still painted with English-sounding names; Byass, Harveys, Sandeman, Williams & Humbert.
Each bodega has its own style, its own story to tell. One has barrels dating back to 1805, dedicated to Lord Admiral Nelson and Napoleon Bonaparte, filled in a bid to broker peace during the Battle of Trafalgar, which was being fought along the coast. Another is favoured by the former King of Spain, yet another has a dazzling family art collection that can be enjoyed while sampling an aged vintage.
In each bodega, the air is still, cool and slightly sweetened. The barrels and walls blacken with age and the windows are covered by straw mats to allow the sea breeze to blow in from the coast less than 20km away.
Sherry in Jerez is as revered as it always was. When I order a vino – a wine – in a bar, the waiter reels off the different sherries on offer. This is no post-dinner tipple, this is a drink to be enjoyed with dinner, with friends, with family or simply with a good book on a sun-dappled terrace.
The best bodegas for the ultimate
sherry experience in Jerez
A work of art
At Bodegas Tradicion, my tour didn’t just involve my guide deftly plunging a venencia – a small metal cup attached to a long handle – into barrels to pour me sherry samples, it was also a step back in time.
I wandered through the family-run bodega’s private art collection, with sherry glass in hand, they jokingly call it a ‘visual pairing’. I had the chance to get up-close to an original Velazquez, a Greco and a Goya – there are no cordons keeping you at a safe difference here – while sipping on a piece of history.
But nothing beats the priceless historic documents presented by glove-clad historian Manolo Marin, who presented record books documenting centuries of wine trading, dangerously close to my sherry glass.
My favourite was a note on behalf of the Duke of Gloucester dated 1771 requesting a barrel ‘of the finest wine of Jerez, more on the dry than the sweet side’.
A Spanish icon
Jerez is just one corner of the so-called Sherry Triangle. As well as Sanlucar de Barrameda, home to manzanilla, is El Puerto de Santa Maria, just a 10-minute train ride away and worth the visit just for Bodegas Osborne. Whether you know the name or not, you will be familiar with the huge black bull cut-outs that dot the Spanish landscape. These roadside bull silhouettes were first created in 1956 as an advert for Osborne’s brandy, but have since become part of Spain’s very cultural fabric, becoming a symbol of the country itself.
The bodega is set in its own fragrant gardens of jasmine, magnolia and orange trees, with a buzzing restaurant and shop selling everything from elegant scarves to blazers marked with the famous bull silhouette.
Much to my delight, at the on-site museum documenting the bodegas more than 150 years of history, I learnt that the bodega had been co-founded by Thomas Osborne and Sir James Duff Gordon, surely a long lost relation of mine? With premium aged Osborne sherry selling for around £160 a bottle, I made a mental note to investigate family links.
Home of Harvey’s
Bodegas Fundador was founded in 1730 and is a collection of handsome buildings right in the old town, brilliant white with yellow trim and set around a tree-filled courtyard. It produces that most familiar sherry brand Harveys and its Bristol Cream, first created in 1882 as a blend of fino, oloroso, amontillado, made with the Palomino grape, with the sweet Pedro Ximenez grape as the fourth ingredient.
After touring the huge bodega buildings, connected by narrow cobbled walkways I headed to La Taperia Fundador for tapas and sherry cocktails. The bodega prides itself on offering customised tours, so if you want to head out and visit the vineyards and explore them on horseback, that can all be arranged.
French fancy
At French-owned Bodegas Lustau, another glorious village of whitewashed warehouse buildings awaits, each one covered in bougainvillea to keep the heat out. Here I took a tour with glass in hand, which was liberally topped up with different types of sherry as we were taught about the process behind producing them.
For a more exclusive experience groups of 10 or more can head to the vineyard for a sherry tasting among the wines followed by lunch or enjoy a glamorous Imperial Dinner at the bodega with a special flamenco performance.
Tabanco sherry bars
My favourite place to sip an oloroso and feel part of the Jerez sherry scene was in one of the local tabanco bars. These rustic joints are still frequented by sherry-drinking locals, popping in the catch up on news as they go about their daily business. Some also stage flamenco shows, not grand tourist-prepared performances, but intimate, emotional affairs on tiny stages.
At Tabanco El Pasaje, I was among a mix of locals and visitors who watched the performance transfixed while enjoying generous tumblers of sherry and platters of smoked tuna and jamon.
In true Jerez style, at family-run Restaurant La Carbona, I pair a tasting menu with local sherries. Salmon served with fino, a squid risotto with amontillado and duck with oloroso, not to mention a Pedro Ximenez-accompanied goat cheesecake.
In comparison, upstart Restaurante Mulai is the new hotspot in town, tucked down a beautiful cobbled alley and combining local ingredients with an international menu. Think sea bass ceviche, Iberian pork tataki and hake in a beer tempura, served up in Bali-inspired surrounds.
But there is one thing they all have in common, from the simplest tabanco bar to the city’s multiple Michelin-star restaurants, you’ll be enjoying your meal with a little taste of history, a glass or two of the finest sherry in Jerez. And don’t worry, there won’t be a hipster in sight.
