An award-winning cheese producer in the Parque Natural de los Alcornocales near Jerez is working on a new cheese which contains Sherry. The Queseria El Gazul is working
with Gonzalez Byass, and the plan is to infuse the new cheese with the bodega’s
Solera 1847 Oloroso Dulce. Wow!
The final of the 5th Copa Jerez competition will
take place in the Jerez Hospitality and Catering School on the 15th
October. Seven chef-sommelier teams from around the world will produce dishes
accompanied by Sherry, and the best combination will be declared the winner of
the prestigious Jerez Cup. The seven “teams”, who have already won the regional
competitions, come from Germany, Belgium, Denmark, the USA, Spain, Holland and
Britain. The judges come from the highest level of the catering world, chefs,
food critics and sommeliers. The event is the centrepiece of the Great Sherry
Festival, so Sherry will get plenty of promotion this month.
The October edition of the Scotch Malt Whisky Society
magazine, Unfiltered, features a lengthy article on Sherry, recognising its
importance to the whisky trade. To give an idea of that importance, the
magazine says that the Macallan Distillery alone has no less than 20,000 butts
filled with Oloroso at Gonzalez Byass. GB works with quite a few distillers;
Whyte and MacKay and Edrington, for example, who produce single malts such as Fettercairn,
Jura, Dalmore and Macallan, Highland Park, Glenturret respectively. The butts
are seasoned with whichever type of Sherry is required for some 12-24 months before
their journey to Scotland. It is fantastic to see the whisky community giving
due recognition to the Sherry which can provide a huge boost to the flavour of
whisky. The Society is a fantastic institution with a beautiful range of independently bottled single cask single malts, many aged in ex Sherry butts.
