1.12.15 César Saldaña on the Sherry Symposium

César Saldaña director of the Consejo Regulador is interviewed by JP Lobato of the Diario de Jerez.

“The Scientific Symposium held over last weekend in Jerez to celebrate the 80^th anniversary of the DO has served above all to fill a gap in the recent recorded history of Sherry. Today we know much more about the last 80 years than we did before, which is very gratifying to the trade,” commented César on behalf of the organising committee and the Consejo.

When we began organising the symposium, the committee said that if 60 people attended it would be a success, but it ended up with 100, and we are sure that if there had been more room more would have come. It was a great success, not just in terms of the number of people coming but also in the level of attendance at each and every event. The Consejo is very pleased that each sector of the trade was represented. There must be a reason for so much interest and now we have to analyse this response, because the presence of young people gives us hope for the future and justifies optimism that the trade is being seen through different perspectives. The committee will soon publish the minutes of each event which will later be reflected in a book.

Cesar Saldaña, Consejo director

Does this mean that this will be the first of other conferences on Sherry? “Of course, but we’ll need to look into which aspects. This event was multidisciplinary, and from now on we want to be more specific, questions such as image, pricing, profitability of the wine, which is the daily task of those in the trade. Research needs to be done into many aspects.”

On top of covering the last not particularly well recorded 80 years of the history of the Consejo and its wines, the final day covered the very important matter of the future of Sherry and was a “real exercise in full, deep reflection.”  Many of those who attended the symposium were delighted that the issue was squarely addressed and referred clearly to the delicate position in which the industry finds itself; why and how people have turned away from Sherry both at home and abroad. César referred to his own lecture saying that his analysis of the markets offered an opportunity: now we know where we are and that is essential in deciding where we want to go. This is our challenge now: taking into account the complexity of the markets and paying attention to the growing numbers of young experts and people who are interested in wine, who are leading us to predict a change in fashion.

30.11.15 Sherry Goes to the Cinema

The Jerez academic and president of the Jerez Cinema Club José Luís Jiménez gave a lecture on the subject of “Sherry goes to the Cinema: Sherry seen in the cinema from Gone with the Wind (1939) to Mr Turner (2014)” as part of the Scientific Symposium celebrating the 80^th anniversary of DO Jerez.

Gone with the wind: "Have a drink of Sherry"

Culture is what defines the human being above the basic necessities, what the mind and wits have created so that our passage through this world is more than a mere exercise in survival. Sherry is part of Western culture. Culture is created by means of art and for those of refined spirit, luxury becomes essential. The poet TS Eliot said, and quite rightly, that “all that a civilised person needs is one, or two, glasses of dry Sherry before dinner.”

"Elementary. A glass of Sherry?"

The influence of life on art and art on life is constant, and as soon as Sherry arrives on the tables of a country it begins to appear in the pages of its literature, its name is soon heard on the stage, and from there it becomes widespread among the people, and the very gesture of offering a glass of Sherry becomes a sacred rite. No art is independent of the people or the society which it sustains, so that when a new art form is born it must necessarily feed itself from the universal fund of culture. In this way the cinema feeds itself from Sherry.

Mr Turner

Sherry is one of the most cinematographic of wines. This conclusion - and many others - can be reached by the study of over 500 films where Sherry plays an active role in the stories brought to the big screen. This lets us understand fundamentally how the image of Sherry has been projected to the world, and yet certain institutions have devalued its potential with odd manipulations in the dubbing of the original soundtrack.

28.11.15 The Multinationals Were Never Interested in Sherry

An encyclopaedia could be written about the relationship between the multinationals (multis)and Sherry, and this was the theme of yesterday’s first round table debate at the Scientific Symposium in celebration of the 80^th anniversary of DO Jerez. The debate centred on the role of the multis which arrived in Jerez and in the majority of cases fled when they realised Sherry was not going to fulfil their initial expectations. In fact there only remains one: Beam Suntory which represents Harveys and what is left of Domecq: Fundador brandy.

Rafael Navas, director of the Diario de Jerez, introduced the five speakers who were: Mauricio González Gordon (González Byass), Jorge Pascual (Delgado Zuleta), Beltrán Domecq (Consejo Regulador), Helena Rivero (Tradición) and Eduardo Ojeda (Estévez).

(L-R) Mauricio Gonzalez, Jorge Pascual, Beltran Domecq, Rafael Navas, Helena Rivero, Eduardo Ojeda (foto:vanesa lobos/diario jerez)

Sherry is not thinking these days in terms of multis and mergers. Opening the debate, Mauricio González Gordon, president of González Byass said: “Now is not the time for that, what is needed is for everybody to make an effort to reinvent the trade, and many companies are doing amazingly creative things.”

The multis were attracted to Jerez from the 1980s as a result of the boom in Sherry sales. These big companies saw a business opportunity in Sherry seeing it more as a liqueur than a wine, but they failed to see that margins were not what they had hoped for, and that wine does not offer an immediate return on investment. Of course not all multis saw Jerez for its wine and internationally recognised brands; some were interested in the brandy, but with similar results. Others still liked the distribution networks, precursors to worldwide exports, but by the end of the 1990s businesses were reverting to the family model.

The González family, had a long and fruitful relationship with the Byass family over 130 years, but reverted to 100% family ownership after buying out the Byass family in the 1980s and IDV and Benetton in 1997. Mauricio González said “The multis are more comfortable dealing with beer, liqueurs and spirits than wine, in which it is riskier and more difficult to develop a global brand.”

Jorge Pascual worked for over a decade at Sandeman which was sold by Pernod Ricard to the Portuguese multi Sogrape. Jorge, also an ex-president of the Consejo said that the great virtue of family businesses is the closeness and flexibility in decision making as opposed to the single minded management of the multis which, nonetheless brought other ways of doing things with a more global vision. Both models are valid because in the end, behind a multi or a family, there are always people.”

Beltrán Domecq spent 40 years at the old Domecq which, before the spiral of takeovers – Allied Lyons, Beam Global, Beam Suntory – had itself become a “mini-multi.” The main thing he takes from his personal experience is that “the multis were not interested in Sherry,” and the other speakers agreed with him when he stated that Sherry was relegated to the back in the huge portfolios of huge companies in the category “others.”

Eduardo Ojeda fulfilled his dream of working in a bodega at Croft, part of the British multi IDV. The firm had long had links with Jerez and decided to build its own bodega complex where Pale Cream was invented. “The wine was made in Jerez and the decisions were taken in England,” he said, continuing that “the 1990s saw a fundamental change in the mentality of the multis who began looking for more immediate profit, something which Sherry can’t provide.” Attracted by the building of a whole new bodega for Valdespino after its acquisition by José Estévez, Eduardo exchanged the multi for the family business with its commitment to the land, something which made the multis run.

It was roots in the land which led Juaquín Rivero to resuscitate the old family bodega of Rivero CZ which the bank had snatched from his forbears in the form of Bodegas Tradición. His daughter Helena, now bodega president, believes that having the roots and attachment to the land which the multis lack is the key to keeping family businesses going, as they think in the longer term. “Sherry can’t be squeezed in the way that some products can, something the multis take to the limit, and which brought Sherry to its latest crisis.”

A final question was “why have the Sherry bodegas not taken the plunge and become multis themselves?” Mauricio replied that Sherry was the precursor of world distribution in the XIX century but it was neither established with its own structure outside Spain nor through third companies. “We (González Byass) were strong in Spain where we began diversifying into other Dos, Rioja, Cava… but family firms have limited resources and lack a change in culture which is not easy.”

27.11.15 Gremio de la Vinatería v Consejo Regulador

In his lecture to the Scientific Symposium celebrating 80 years of the DO Jerez, the famous historian Javier Maldonado Rosso chose to talk about “From the Gremio de la Vinatería to the Consejo Regulador. From Protectionism to Liberalism.” He said that there is a widespread belief that the Gremio de la Vinatería/Cosecheros (Guild of Winegrowers) was the antecedent of the Consejo, but this is far from true.

While Denominaciones de Origen and Consejos Reguladores came about from the necessity for self-regulation and to combat fraud and imitation which were doing enormous damage at the beginning of the XX century, the growers’ guilds were revelling in privileges granted long ago by royalty which meant a straightjacket for the development of Sherry by holding back modernization. The Consejos are integrated entities; they unify growers, almacenistas and exporters to whom they offer judicial security while they represent a guarantee for consumers. In contrast the Gremios were exclusive – growers only – rabid localists and protectionists of their privileges.

The Gremio de la Vinatería de Jerez was established in the XVIII century, closely preceding those of Sanlúcar and El Puerto. It was constituted in response to the growth of exports and the consequent disparity of interests between growers and exporters. The exporters wanted to squeeze the growers to achieve better margins so the growers organised to protect themselves, but the Gremios tended to be run badly by oligarchies of growers. The system was corrupt from the start and by the end of the 1760s, the growers’ failure to comply with their own rules led to the development of the system we know today. In the case of Jerez the transformation was led by Juan Haurie – founder of what would become Domecq – together with a small band of growers who established the ageing of wine in the solera system for easy blending for British tastes which led to the construction of the great bodegas to store them.

Javier Maldonado Rosso (foto:gentedelpuerto)

This movement, whose objective was to recapture the added value of the wine from Britain so it remained in Jerez, led to the liberalisation of prices and the appearance of exporting houses with vertical integration – the bodegas de Crianza y Expedición which also owned vineyards. With the triumph of liberalism after the death of Fernando VII in 1834, the Gremios were abolished without the growers’ attempts to face down the exporters over the following decades ever coming to fruition.

27.11.15 Irene García Supports Sanlúcar

The president of the Junta in Cádiz and socialist ex-mayor of Sanlúcar, Irene García, who yesterday participated in the opening of the Scientific Symposium in celebration of the 80^th anniversary of the DO Jerez, was not shy in standing up for the Sanlúcar rebels among the big guns in Jerez.

Irene Garcia and Beltran Domecq at the Symposium (foto:diario jerez)

She made a spirited defence of the bodegas of her birthplace saying the Consejo should keep up with the times and that the BIB suits consumer preferences. The said that there was obviously a problem and that it should be addressed by “sustained, sincere and necessary dialogue. The Consejo cannot forget that Manzanilla forms a part of it.”

For his part, and after Wednesday’s resounding vote at the Consejo plenary with 17 votes in favour, 2 abstentions and 1 against prosecuting the rebels, Beltrán Domecq said “the rules must be obeyed, and if some small bodega decides to do things illegally in breach of the rules, we will not allow it.”

27.11.15 It All Began With Fraud

The cause of the origin. With this premise Alberto Ramos Santana, doctor of contemporary history at the University of Cádiz, gave a lecture titled “The Genesis of Denominaciónes de Origen”, to those attending the symposium celebrating the 80^th anniversary of the Consejo Regulador in Jerez yesterday.

“To speak of Denominación de Origen is to speak of the classification and individualisation of what we produce,” he began. “One of the most widespread suppositions is to talk about what happens when wines are named after their place of origin. Another is that in taverns all over the province the wines were easily recognised by their provenance, the classics being those from Jerez, El Puerto and Sanlúcar.”

Alberto ramos Santana (foto:uca)

Nevertheless, during his talk Ramos emphasised two essential aspects. Firstly, with the arrival of Phylloxera in Europe in 1863, small winegrowers quickly went bust and the big ones were left to face up to the challenge. Secondly, in places like France and Jerez fraud and imitation took off since production by 1866 had plummeted to nearly half and there was no spare wine for export. In the case of Jerez wines were fortified with alcohol from Germany which did not originate from wine.

At the Congress of Intellectual property in Paris in 1878 people started discussing who had the property of each product. In this sense the Agreement of Madrid of 1891, to which very few subscribed, differentiated between indication of provenance, generic denomination and the denomination of origin – which it failed to define. It would not be until 1902 according to Ramos, when there began to appear “a clear precedent for denomination of origin” through a law promoted in May which regulated “the use of collective brands under the geographical name of the place of production.” In Jerez two great motivators stepped up who proposed to restore the winemaking culture: the ex-mayor of Jerez, Juan F Lassaletta and the Marqués de Casa-Domecq who, despite their good intentions, came up against an argument between growers and exporters about the Jerez denomination not accepting wines from elsewhere, or on the contrary that it was a collective brand for various producers.

The brand “Vino de Jerez” along with the territory which should be included in the denomination of origin went through as many stages as political changes. Particularly memorable is the date of January 1935 when the statutes of the Consejo Regulador were approved. The regulations established the zone of production as Jerez, El Puerto, Chipiona, Rota, Puerto Real, Chiclana and Sanlúcar. One year later the deputy Juan José Palomino suspended this clause and established that the production zone should include all the wine villages of Cádiz, Córdoba, Sevilla and Huelva, limiting the crianza zone to Jerez and El Puerto and legalising adulteration and fraud in the production of Sherry, thus pandering to the exporters.

This situation only lasted till the following year when the people of Jerez punished him by not voting for him in the 1936 elections. Then the demarcation returned to the original, but including Lebrija. Now the Consejo’s job was to get rid of fraud and imitation Sherries throughout the world. A real lesson from history.