442 JcKriial of Agriculture. [lo July, 1909. 



SHERRY: ITS MAKING AND REARING. 



/''. dc Castclla, Govcr)iincnt Viticidturist. 



Since the 16th century, " sherrv '" has been a household word in 

 Enghind and the wine known by that name, the object of a large trade 

 with Spain. The frequent references of Shakespeare, and the praises- 

 he has made Falstaff sing of "good sherris sack"' with its "twofold 

 operation "' in " King Henry IV." and elsewhere are perhaps equally 

 convincing and certainly more picturesque than the statistics which could 

 be quoted. 



According to the Duke de Almodovar del Rio, the expedition of the 

 Earl of Essex against Cadiz in the sixteenth century is largely responsible 

 for the development of the sherry trade. The Spanisi^ galleons there 

 captured, laden with wine for the American colonies, popularized the type 

 in England and led to its gradually replacing canary sack. 



The Peninsular war and the increased intercourse between England 

 and Spain for which it was responsil)le, still further stimulated the trade, 

 which steadily increased until the sixties and seventies of the last century, 

 which witnessed the height of the prosperity of Jerez de la Frontera, the 

 centre of the sherrv district. In or atK)ut the year 1873 vineyard land 

 sold at up to ;^40o per acre, and Mostos — i.e., new wines — for as much as 

 400 pesetas per bota or butt, equivalent to nearly 4s. per gallon. In 

 that year the importation of sherr\ into England reached the total of 

 80,257 butts or over 8 million gallons. 



The town of Jerez, though numbering only some 60.000 inhabitants, 

 ranked as one of the richest in Spain and its prosperit\ was entirely due 

 to the wine trade with England. 



After this period of extraordinary prosperity a marked reaction set in 

 and since 1880, or thereal)OUts, there has been a steady decline in the 

 sherrv trade with England, its principal customer, which in 1896 only 

 imported 17,051 butts or less than a (garter of what it received in 1873 — 

 a decline which is mo.st difficult to explain and which is probably rather 

 due to the change of fickle fashion than to any other cause. Various 

 explanations have been suggested Imt iKme of them are really satisfactory. 

 The demand for cheaper wines, with the usual result of blending witli 

 wine of lower grade and consequent lowernig of quality, is one. Accord- 

 ing to Don Francisco Ivi.son y O'Xeale the average price of Sherries 

 shipped to London has fallen from ^40 per butt of 108 gallons in i860 

 to £^2\ in 7892. The attack of Dr. Thudicum on the wholesomeness 

 of sherrv, is a good deal blamed for it lo(\illy ; this will be dealt 

 with more fullv in connection with the use of plaster in the making of 

 the wine, a practice out of which capital appears. to have been made.- The 

 outl)reak of phylloxera is sometimes blamed, hut as tliis occurred in 1895, 

 or long after the decline in trade had set in, it cannot in any way l)e held 

 responsible; though it has certainly led to a reduction in ])ro(luction which 

 reconstitution has not, as yet, made good. 



The falling f)ff in the demand for this wine may in certain quarters 

 be looked upon as a l)lessing in disguise, for it has permitted accumula- 

 tions of old wines in tlic l)odegas of Jerez which are more than ample 

 to maintain the quality of the wines shipped, until the produce of the 

 new vineyards is fit to take the i)lace of those destroyed by phylloxera. 

 Quite recently there are symptoms of a revival in the demand for sherrv. 

 It is at any rate hoped for by those interested in the trade and certainly 

 justified by the quality of the large existing .stocks of magnificent wines. 



