.png)
3 hours ago
5
By the time I knew her, my granny was in her whisky and water era, but my dad clearly remembers a bottle of Harveys Bristol Cream in the drinks cupboard, ready to pour for friends after church in the 1970s. This is the enduring image of cream sherry, one that it has struggled to shake off. While other sherries – bone-dry fino and manzanilla (made by ageing palomino grapes under a yeast layer called flor), oxidative amontillado or oloroso, and sweet, single varietals such as pedro ximénez (PX) – have acquired new cachet among younger drinkers, not least because they’re relatively affordable, cream is the emblematic Little English tipple of a bygone time.
Britain was sherry’s biggest export market for several centuries – the word is said to hark back to importers’ inability to pronounce the J in Jerez, where this large, colourful family of fortified wines originates. So Jerez became “sherez” became “sherry” – and cream sherry was developed specifically for the tastes of Victorian drinkers. The iconic Harveys, for example, named after its Bristol-based wine merchant/importer, arrived in the 1860s and by the early 1970s was shifting a million cases of the stuff each year (sales have since dropped to a mere fraction of that).
It doesn’t help that cream sherry has a branding problem; there’s not a drop of dairy in sight. Its name refers to its superior taste and mouthfeel – that is, “the cream of sherries”. The labelling isn’t much better at drawing in or educating a young crowd. The Harveys label, which features two distinctly British gents, reads “solera sherry”, but that will mean something only to those who know – solera being the ageing process by which young and older wines are blended, and the means by which sherry can be transformed from wine that varies by vintage to a consistent branded product.
I don’t know anyone who drinks cream sherry these days, but, having tasted a fair bit of it in recent weeks, I can understand why it became so popular. A blend of viscous, raisiny PX and aromatic, dry oloroso sherry, in which a base wine made with palomino grapes is aged oxidatively, this is a drink that, despite being out of fashion, is balanced and surprisingly versatile: at once sweet, roasted and buttery, bracing and deeply savoury. ABVs can vary wildly, but it is consistently well-suited to cheese, cold cuts (Iberian ones, especially), pudding and, for mid-century churchgoers such as my grandparents, as an aperitif. On its own, it doesn’t scream aperitif to me, but it would work well with tonic for a slightly sweeter iteration of the She & T; a tablespoon of aged cream with a more viscous consistency could also be poured over vanilla ice-cream for a lazy and undeniably good adult dessert.
In any case, Harveys is the classic cream sherry because it remains a very good one: figgy, a touch of salt, a little tart. Another standout cream sherry is Matusalem by iconic producer Gonzalez Byass, which is aged for 30 years. It’s a little more savoury than younger creams – less cloying, more complex and with an almost coffee-like note – and it would be well suited to mature cheese or perhaps some dark chocolate.
Four sherries to (re)discover
Tesco Finest Cream Sherry £7.75 (37.5cl), 6.8%. A nifty, thrifty cheeseboard’s friend, and made by Gonzalez Byass.
Sainsbury’s Sweet Pale Cream Sherry £11.25 (1 litre), 17.5%. A lighter style, where fino replaces oloroso as the base wine – a good chilled aperitif or serve with creamy puds.
Gonzalez Byass VORS Matusalem 30-Year-Old-Cream-Sherry (37.5cl) £26.50 Ocado, 20.5%. Molasses and fruitcake vibes – and heaven with stilton.
Lustau East India Solera Sherry £14.50 (50cl) Waitrose, 20%. A blend of 80% oloroso and 20% PX aged separately for 12 years first. A pleasing, savoury note makes this complex and versatile.
