ao Aug., 1909.] S/icrry : Its Makin^j^ and Rearhtg. 



517 



.the average man — even the man who has a fair general knowledge of wine 

 ■ — reallv knows alx)ut sherry. To form a correct idea with the wines 

 before one was difficult enough. To endeavour, by de.scription alone, to 

 convey a correct idea of such a complex question, and without samples to 

 assi-st the memorv by means of the palate, is harder still. 



Before attempting to describe the different pure tvpes. reference must 

 be made to the characteristic taste of sherry and the organism by which it is 

 [)roduced. The sherry taste is almost too well known for it to be necessary 

 to attempt to descril>e it. That curious taste, reminding somewhat of ether 

 or, to be more correct, of aldehyde, which distinguishes sherry from all 

 •other wines, and which has, .sO' far. altogether eluded us in Australia. 

 Though we have achieved a con.siderable measure of success in the making 

 of wines of other t\pes. in the direction of sherrv we have not vet turned 

 ■out any wine which even a moderate wine judge Avould for a moment mis- 

 take for a genuine sherr\ . This ta.ste is not present in all the wines one 

 meets with in Jerez. In some — as we shall see presentlv — it is con- 



SAAIPLE ROOM OF BODEGAS OF " PEDRO DOMECQ. ' " 



spicuous by its absence, but some wine, which possesses it in a pronounced 

 form, is almost always blended into the sherries of commerce before ship- 

 ment, so that this peculiar taste is characteristic of all sherries one usually 

 meets with. 



Sherries in their natural unblended state can, in fact, lie all divided 

 into two great groups, viz., those with this peculiar character and 

 those without it. This will be more readilv understood when the 

 agenc) by which the development of this character is brought about ha'' 

 been explained. All wines possessing this sherry taste have, during ther. 

 first few years, been stored in ullaged casks, in which a film of a special 

 type of fungus has been allowed to freely develop on the surface. It is 

 the development of this fungus which is entirelv responsible for the pro- 

 duction of the .sherry taste. This fungus, which is known in Spanish as 

 flor (flower), is, in appearance at least, identical with ordinary " flowers 

 •of wine," or mycoderma Tini, with which cellarmen are onlv t<JO familiar, 

 .and which, in the case of light dry wines, is rightlv looked upon as evidence 



