Spain's underrated tipple

For many Irish (and English) people, sherry is a drink that is seen as staid and old-fashioned. There is the stereotype image of the bottle in the cupboard, to be taken out on special occasions in order for small measures to be sipped at room temperature, mostly by old ladies, before being put away again for months on end. Usually it was sweet cream sherry, which is now scoffed at by wine snobs (although I like it). However, in the worst case, it was dry sherry, which tastes bitter and rancid when drunk warm (as white wine would), especially if the bottle has been opened a long time previously.

In Spain, dry sherry, called fino, is drunk chilled, in measures that are larger than our traditional sherry glasses but smaller than ordinary wine glasses. And a bottle never lasts long enough to go rancid in someone's cupboard!

Like all true sherries, it comes from Jerez (near Cadiz) and the surrounding towns. One variety comes specifically from Sanlucar de Barrameda, and is known as manzanilla. And there is no better drink to accompany salty tapas, such as manchego cheese, the delicious pata negra ham (from free-range pigs that consume a lot of acorns in the diet, giving the meet a sweeter flavour), or fried fish. It's the drink that Carmen sings of in Bizet's opera when she lures Don Jose, her guard, into letting her escape.

Unlike most other types of wine, the sherry casks are stored above ground in the bodegas where it is made from the locally-grown palomino grapes. According to popular myth, since Sanlucar is on the sea, the salt spray in the air imparts an especially dry flavour to manzanilla, compared to other fino sherries. I can't say that I have noticed a difference but I still tend to ask for manzanilla, rather than fino, as a matter of course.

The first time I visited Sanlucar, I was privileged to visit the Barbadillo bodegas, where manzanilla and other types of sherry are made. The manzanilla was taken straight from the cask via ladles that looked like steel test-tubes on the ends of long handles, and poured from a height into the sherry glass with effortless precision. We also got to taste the what the Spaniards prefer as sweet shery, the delciously caramelly pedro ximenez, which is far more complex than cream sherry but which should also be served chilled. The Barbadillo family also bottle some of the white wine that forms the basis of fino without fortifying it and this, too, is excellent - a light, crisp wine that goes very well with summer seafood.

So, if you haven't tasted fino (manzanilla or other), go out and get some, chill it and drink it in within a few days. Trust me, it's delicious.

In Spain you also find a camomile tea called manzanilla and it is foul.