Fake Sherry

When a wine has been so famous for so long as Sherry has, imitations inevitably appear, and while that might be construed as flattery, some of the imitations were much less than flattering. The New World in particular produced all sorts of "copies" of famous wines such as Californian "Chablis", Australian "Port" often with little resemblance to the original but certainly drinkable wines. After all, the famous names were used more as a description of the style rather than direct impersonation. Sherry probably suffered the most humiliation at the hands of the fakers however.

While Sherry has been faked for centuries, it was really between the 1960's and the end of the 1980's that faking was at its height. At that time Sherry had a huge, mainly sweet market in Britain, led by the redoubtable Harveys' Bristol Cream, but it had an alcoholic strength of over 15% vol. as it was fortified more heavily than now (usually @17.5 - 18% vol). Until the 1970's it was still shipped in butt, and the extra alcohol protected the wine on its journey but this meant it was subject to a higher rate of excise duty, and that is where the impersonators came in.

From Spain itself similar wines were imported from Montilla-Moriles, a quality wine area in Cordoba but with cheaper wines, and passed off as Sherry. They still are in a way as people only see the words Cream or Fino and assume it is Sherry, even though it does say on the label that it is from Montilla-Moriles. The word Montilla resembles Amontillado. At least Montilla (as it is known) is good natural wine - often excellent, and not a fake as such. During the sales boom of the 1970's even Sherry itself suffered a reduction in quality due to overproduction. This only affected commercial blends though, not "proper" Sherries.

There were various lower quality perpetrators of fakes: Britain, Cyprus, South Africa and Australia mainly. Australia South Africa and Cyprus managed to get hold of flor yeast, and the locally made "Sherries" were at least passable if not occasionally quite decent - but not very similar to the real thing. They had the advantage that they were made just under 15% vol and (except Cyprus) had a preferential Commonwealth duty rate. Cyprus had the biggest market of the three in Britain being a lot closer. It consisted of either concentrated must or ready made wines which reached about 15 million litres at its peak, second only to Harveys' Bristol Cream.

 Winemaking in Cyprus was poor, however, and dominated by big commercial enterprises. Even in flor wines, ageing was for only 2 years, and the sweet wines were aged outside in the sun to oxidise quicker and often had concentrated must added. Remember Emva Cream? But the worst abominations were "British". These "wines" were either made from poor quality concentrated grape must or raisins imported from Cyprus (or wherever), then reconstituted here, fortified and adjusted, or imported already made. They were neither British nor Sherry - nor even good. But worse, they are still with us. They haunt the bottom shelves in supermarkets, names like QC Cream among others, often supermarket own brands.


After years of protest by the Consejo Regulador in Jerez, the European Union finally ruled on Sherry in 1996 stating that only wine with the Denominacion de Origen Jerez could use the word "Sherry". Hooray! you must be thinking, but it wasn't a total victory. The ruling gave producers of imitations time to change their labelling and sell through old stock, and in that time they promoted their brands and implanted the brand name rather than that of Sherry in consumers' minds, so when the new labels arrived on the shelves they resembled the old ones, and still, annoyingly, were allowed to use Sherry terms such as Fino and Cream. So all that really happened was the loss of the word Sherry from the labels which few even noticed. Still, over time sales of these products have waned, and tastes have changed a bit as well, thank goodness.

Surely the Consejo could finish off these ghastly products, by hassling the EU to forbid the use of Sherry terms on "wines" which are not Sherry, and at the same time spend some money on a really good campaign to promote Proper Sherry, specifically aimed at younger people. They have more open minds, are willing to experiment, and are the potential next generation of Sherry drinkers. Anyway, for the avoidance of doubt, proper Sherry is the only wine permitted to have the above logo on the back label.