Sherry Characters: Lorenzo Mesa

Lorenzo “El Gordo” (The Fat Man) Mesa was the capataz (cellar master) at Sandeman for over 50 years. He was also known as the “Mesa Redonda” (round table). Always wearing a jacket and self-taught, he rose from nothing to be in charge of the bodega.

He was born on the 5^th of March 1902 when Sherry was going through a period of prosperity. The bodegas were producing much better wines than they had been, but however good the wine, they were making good profits from brandy.

Lorenzo had a hard start in life. Many Jerezanos were tied for work to the bodagas, and his family was no exception. His grandfather Antonio was an arrumbador (one who moves butts and withdraws samples) at the bodega El Cuadro, Sandeman’s first bodega in Jerez, and it was there he lost an arm in an accident. Nearly all Lorenzo’s relatives worked in some capacity at bodegas.

When Lorenzo was ten, his father died, and he felt obliged to drop his studies and support his family. So it was that he joined Sandeman as an apprentice, following the capataz around every morning, sample jug in hand, watching as the wine fell accurately from the venencia into the glass for nosing. He would get involved with all aspects of the bodega work such as the trasiego (running the scales). He would note the expression on the faces of the capataces when they nosed a wine, he memorised the chalk cask markings they applied, and above all he worked hard to memorise all the aromas of the wines.

He became passionate about his work. When nobody was looking, he would grab a venencia and go along the rows of butts nosing them and copying the methods of the capataces. Later he would get involved with chocking the butts to position the bung hole uppermost. He had fallen in love with wine. It was thought that one day he would be a capataz. After only four days in the job, a fire destroyed Sandeman’s Bodega Grande. An ancient butt of oloroso was found in which the wine had been distilled by the heat and the alcohol had burnt it. This was a tragedy, but as in so many tragedies, there was a comic element. The whole town turned out to stem the river of wine flowing down the Calle Pizarro with pots and pans, and once the fire had been extinguished there was a massive party with warm spiced Sherry. Sandeman managed to find replacement wine and began immediately the reconstruction of the bodega in traditional style.

The capataz, Ramon Rodil, recognised talent in the boy. Lorenzo praised him; ”Rodil must have been born under a vine. He knew all the aromas and was very intelligent. It was he who taught me the aromas of the wine and how to classify it. Lorenzo’s enormous dedication was rewarded. In 1937, he was given the job of 2^nd Capataz. Now he began to visit the countryside, covering huge distances, getting to know the vineyards of all areas, including Sevilla, Huelva and Cordoba. In 1947 he was promoted to principal capataz, and he became the person you could trust; he was entrusted with wine purchasing, and his superiors often consulted him. He was now a consummate taster who impressed everyone.

Note interesting cask markings on these anadas (foto Diario Jerez)

In the photo, one can see the concentration on his face, his eyes are open, but he is not seeing, he is nosing without distraction, analysing every last nuance.This is the solemnity of a purely Jerezano act. He has just drawn the wine from the butt with his venencia, from deep down, below the flor, and withdrawn it rapidly to disperse the flor and prevent any getting into the cup of the venencia. He has then held the venencia aloft, and allowed the wine to cascade into his tasting glass, filling the air with its fragrance.

Lorenzo, one of his three children by his wife, Manuela Cornejo Blanco, tells the following story: “He had a solution for everything. One day it was noticed that some seventy butts of must, which had been stored in a part of the bodega which was shaded from the sun, were not fermenting. On the Saturday, he ordered the bodega to be closed and asked for some charcoal to be brought from the vineyards, which he distributed amongst the butts.  In three days, the temperature of the butts rose sufficiently for the fermentation to get underway.”

Lorenzo became a real personality in the bodega. Everyone loved and admired him. Even the Sandemans had to respect his wisdom. David Sandeman, who ran the Sherry side of the business from head office at Harlow in England, had special quarters for him at his office. And when Lorenzo reached retirement, his work was so highly considered and valued, that David Sandeman ordered that he receive his full salary till he died.

Lorenzo worked a full fifty years at Sandeman, and the day he retired, Jerez paid tribute to one of its finest. The bodega stopped dead. There was a morning mass for the workers; an official ceremony with the town council, at which the Mayor pinned the bronze Medal of Jerez close to his heart; an official banquet; and a gift of three bottles of Sherry to each and every worker. Two years later, El Gordo was awarded the Medal for Work Achievement and the Prize for Outstanding Producer, by the Junta Oficial of the Fiesta de la Vendimia 1967.

Lorenzo was not a man for fiestas and revelry. Neither was he one for heavy wines and brandy, and although he drank a bottle of fino every day, the “miracle” of Sherry ensured he had a long life.  He was a man who was open, generous, quite a character but with a big heart. The director Hugo Ungricht used to speak of him as “short, fat and intelligent, but with a heart which was so big it couldn’t fit into his body.” He weighed 120 kilos, but he never had a complex about it.

As a retirement gift, Sandeman invited him and his wife to spend a week in London, where he visited Harlow and took account of the care the English took with the shipment of barrels and their advanced and sophisticated technology.

For thirty years, through the offices of Hugo Ungricht and the Junta Oficial de la Vendimia, Lorenzo took charge of the setting up of the all-important lagar (vessel for treading grapes), an integral part of the annual Fiesta de la Vendimia, which he went out of his way to do. It was said he didn’t sleep, thinking how best to do it. The treaders all wanted to take part, even though it was a mule train taking the butt of must to the bodega of San Gines (the Consejo’s own bodega).

At 91 years of age, and surrounded by his family, Lorenzo died on 3^rd October 1993, in the bed to which he had been confined in his last years. But even from his bed, he was always asking visitors about shipping sales, the state of the harvest, or what was going on in the bodegas.

A Sandeman television advertisement from 1968 starred Lorenzo showing workers how to use a venencia, and can still be seen on You Tube. It gives us a smile, remembering a good man with a big heart.

Search “The people who blended it first” on You Tube.