Andalusia Journal 2004
Jeréz & Sanlucar (& Écija)
So then we drove to Jeréz, parked, and Susanne and I had bocadillos. We wanted to go to Sandeman, because Eric and I had been to their tour in Porto, Portugal, but the tour was closed temporarily to renovations. We tried to go to a different bodega nearby, but it didn't turn out to be there. Instead, I walked into a luxury hotel which looked like a bodega, and asked for a tour – pretty funny when you think about it.
We decided to head across town to González Byass, which was another well-recommended tour. Our guide books suggested booking ahead, so we decided to walk there, buy tickets, have some lunch, and then go to the tour. Heading across town, we ended up going all the way around the very large González Byass bodega complex because we didn't know where the entrance was and we walked the wrong way around to get there.
We bought our tickets and sat and waited in the park by the Alcázar of Jeréz. It was a very nice day, and not too cold in the sun. We also went and got a sandwich for Eric (Susanne and I decided were weren't hungry) – Eric got a hot pork loin bocadillo at a bar which was really fantastic.
The tour was very nice and a lot of fun. It was that sort of goofy overly-slick kind of tour, complete with little trolley train around the complex. One odd thing: they have an aged sweet sherry (cream, I think) named Aposteles because it's aged in barrels named for the apostles. The guide explained that the Judas barrel had been replace with a barrel named Matias because a "Judas" barrel would produce vinegar instead of wine – but the barrel on the far left certainly seemed to be named "Judas", and it was "Lucas" that was missing. Apparently they are in the same order as da Vinci's last supper, so I'll have to look the whole thing up at some point.
We tasted three kinds of sherry: a fino (dry), their signature product, called Tio Pepe, a pale cream called Croft, and a pedro ximínez, similar to the Noe Eric had bought the night before, but aged less. All three were very nice, and we considered buying the Croft. Ultimately we didn't (González Byass' Croft is available easily in the US), but we did pick up a bottle of Aposteles, plus some small bottles to use as stocking stuffers.
We drove to Sanlucar, and got a decent hotel: Hotel Los Helechos. It has an inside open air patio, which is very cool. The rooms have heat (electric, from the same units that provide A/C) and little enclosed balconies (of the same sort we saw everywhere in Galicia in 1999).
For dinner, we went to Casa Balbino for tapas – our guidebooks recommended it as a very authentic experience, and possibly the best tapas in all off Spain.
The food was indeed excellent. We had a gradual feast of púdin de atún (tuna pudding), olives, little chorizos fried, "tortilla de camarones" (a loose fritter made with tiny unshelled shrimp), queso de oveja añado (similar to Manchego), a roasted red paprika-like pepper stuffed with tuna, eggplant stuffed with pork, roast pepper salad, and the little cracker-breadstick things we had everywhere. Eric drank manzanilla with the dinner – Sanlucar is where manzanilla is made, even though it's bottled under the Jeréz D.O.C.
After dinner we stopped for ice cream at a place selling the Bornay brand. It was very good – Eric had tiramisu flavor, Susanne had chocolate mint, and I had strawberry sorbet.
And then we went back to the hotel (pausing in the patio), to our nice heated rooms.
12/3
In the morning we walked around town. We had a simple breakfast at the café where we'd had ice cream the night before. We looked at bags (Susanne was considering buying a new one), then headed for the tourism office to find out about manzanilla bodega visits. However, due to construction, the tourism office had moved from the town center to the beach. It was too far to walk, and we decided to go at lunch after we'd checked out.
We stopped at an Internet place to check our email, and headed back toward the hotel.
We passed a bodega close to the hotel, called Cigarrera. It looked promising, so we went in to see if a visit would be possible. It was, and the visit was very good. It turns out that Cigarrera is the oldest manzanilla bodega in Sanlucar, but it's a nice small operation – a good counterpoint to the González Byass tour. The difference between manzanilla and fino sherry, it turns out, is the climate. Being on the coast, Sanlucar has a milder climate; this in turn allows more yeast to build up floating on top, which protects the manzanilla from oxidation more than the fino (the key characteristic of fino being that it is protected from oxidation by the yeast, or flor, on top).
Anyway, the tour was fun and informative – it was just the three of us, very intimate and informal.
After the tour, we tasted manzanilla, pedro ximínez, and moscato (three different grapes, three different styles: mazanilla, like fino, is dry; pedro ximínez is extremely sweet and treacly; and moscato is sweet, but less so. We all bought some manzanilla.
We checked out of the hotel; while pulling out of the garage, turning onto a very narrow street, I damaged the car a little – a big scratch on the back right fender.
We drove down to beach, which is across the river from the Costa Donaña, Europe's largest nature preserve. We walked on the beach, picked up ruffled clam shells (I lost mine), and had lunch at an outdoor café called Café Pomo.
I had an ensalada mixta followed by dorada al sal (gilthead baked in salt – turns out I don't like gilthead, it's too fishy), Susanne had a sopa de marisco that she liked very much followed by swordfish ajillo, which was also very good. Eric had an ensalada simple (i.e. a green salad), followed by a fish and seafood stew, accompanied by, of course, another glass of manzanilla.
We left town and stopped, just outside of Jeréz, to go to a supermarket called Hipercor. Hipercor was a lot of fun – it seemed to be a little like a Target, with more food, or perhaps more like a Super Stop and Shop.
We bought a bunch of stuff, including bonito in olive oil, and a couple of big bottles of water. The Hipercor was inside of an El Corte Inglés department store, and we spent some time looking around in there, too. All in all we spent quite a while in there, so it was pretty late when we got back on the road.
We drove to Écija, an old town on the way to Córdoba. We stayed at a pretty nice, but mostly uninteresting, hotel called Hotel la Plateria. There were no singles, so we stayed in a triple (actually a double with a fold out sofa). It was a pretty nice place, though it had nothing special about it and it was a little pricey.
We ate at a place called Cafetéria Pasareli. My dictionary translated "cafetéria" as "Café; Bar; Lunchroom", which was a pretty good description of the place. We sat in the part that was most like a lunchroom. But the food was good. We shared olives and sliced chorizo. I had sopa de picadillo, followed by a flamenquín, which is veal and ham rolled around a filling (I don't remember what was in mine), breaded and deep-fried. Susanne had creamed mushrooms, followed by sopa de picadillo. She had originally ordered a salad, but changed her mind and had the soup. The salad came anyway, and Eric and I ate most of it because it was very salty. Eric had artichokes with ham, then "presa Iberico" (or was it prensa?), which on the English menu was translated as "Iberian piece" (as was the "secreto Iberico" also on the menu) – it was basically a cutlet. When we were leaving, our waiter gave us little bottles of local olive oil.