This was Jerez (‘Sharish’ as the Moors called it), home of sherry. We arrived while Feria was on, a festival of horsemanship, eating and drinking.
I felt out of place, drab, not wearing a flamenco dress. These dresses are not just dancers’ attire and the stuff of postcards, but are the ‘posh frocks’ of many Spanish ladies, from toddlers to grandmothers. You have to know how to wear them – the traditionalists place their fans down their cleavages, younger women carry their mobile phones there! Lack of pockets is a problem although I spotted one lady rummaging amongst her frills for a small pouch carrying a pack of cigarettes.
All Spanish women know how to dance the flamenco – they teach it at school. And they did dance it – impromptu performances in bars, making the most of the space there was, moving to the rhythm of the music. It wasn’t the emotionally-charged flamenco of a serious dance but was fun to watch.
It was hot. We found a table and ordered drinks. My husband went for a large beer, a ‘grande’. It turned out to be a one-litre jug! Although he claimed he’d never be able to drink it all, there wasn’t much left.
We noticed many tables had jugs of a clear liquid with sprigs of a mint-like herb in them. It was, we discovered, a mix of fino sherry and 7-Up. Never did get to try it as we had no capacity for more liquid!
Fino sherry – without the 7-Up – is the trademark of Jerez. The Tio Pepe symbol, the bottle wearing a red sombrero, is everywhere so we visited the grand winery. A small train transported us around the place where we heard stories of the family who founded it, saw the photographs of famous people who had visited – with their signatures on barrels – and tasted the products.
We heard about the resident mouse who likes sweet sherry. A glass, with a little ladder leaning on, was left out nightly for him.
Sherry is often paired with food here, like any other wine. I struggled with that. I’m not really a sherry drinker but, nevertheless, all four tastings (each a full glass) slipped down.
If we didn’t drink sherry with our meals, we certainly drank the local wine. At under €2 a glass, it was good value (and not bad quality), excellent with a selection of tapas. Salmorejo – a local, cold soup, a richer cousin of gazpacho – artichoke hearts with garlic prawns and tomatoes full of flavour. I could continue…
We saw the ubiquitous sign, ‘Hay caracoles’, outside restaurants and bars.
Caracoles are tiny snails, a local delicacy, eaten with a pin. I like snails, the French variety in a garlic sauce, but couldn’t be bothered with these little things. Maybe I missed a treat. We saw them by the sackful in the fish market. Those and every other fish you could imagine, lined up like works of art on the fishmongers’ slabs.
We walked miles and often got lost in the maze of streets. We kept to the shady side of the narrow alleys and it didn’t matter if we took a devious route to the cathedral, the old church of St Miguel or the Alcazar.
Jerez is a timeless place where a mix of peoples have lived and passed through. There’s always a bar for a drink and a rest, a couple of tapas, and a chat. The locals were friendly and I regretted my forgotten Spanish.
I thought I’d remember Jerez for the sherry; I’ll remember it for much more than that.
linimeant 