26.7.13 Great Exhibition at Jerez Museum; Last Pre-Harvest Consejo Meeting

Antes de las Soleras y el Catavino (before soleras and tasting glasses) is the theme of a new activity in the Jerez Arqueological Museum, dedicated to the relationship between wine and the history and culture of Jerez. There will be four events on the 6^th 13^th 20^th and 27^th of August at 19.30 in English and at 20.00 in Spanish.

These will comprise a tour of the Museum, highlighting the most relevant exhibits to the theme.  The Museum director, Rosalia Gonzalez, explained that wine, which has so marked the city’s history, will be the protagonist, so that visitors will be able to get to know the different aspects of the art and culture of wine in Jerez up to the end of the XVIII century, when the solera system came into common use.

The Museum has all sorts of ceramic vessels, amphorae, sculptures, reliefs, mosaics and pieces of glass among other things, which speak of gods, myths, symbols, rituals and business, all relative to wine, whose consumption is generally accepted in this area as dating back to the fist millennium BC in the times of Tartessos with the arrival of the Phonecians. The Carambolo painted ceramics belong to this era, and were excavated both at the necropolis and at the area called Mesas de Asta, and recent studies have shown they were used for wine.

The Manzanilla Question and the shortage of grapes will be the main topics at the plenary meeting of the Consejo on Tuesday, where it is hoped to finally cure some old wounds. The Manzanilla Question, a proposal by Fedejerez to limit Fino production to Jerez, a vote on which was postponed for a cooling-off period, will be on the agenda, but it seems likely to be postponed again. Also, the Consejo has not yet received a reply from the Junta, from whom it requested an opinion, as the Junta is waiting for an opinion from Brussels on the new Reglamento.

There are other matters needing resolution, such as old customs and rules unchanged since the start of the Denominacion de Origen in the 1930’s which are obsolete, and more so with the arrival of the new regulations. The thorny issue of bag-in-box is another, not to mention the use of the word Chiclana on moscatel from there, the producers of which were threatening to leave the DO.