After all this manzanilla I thought I would go fino tonight and this one by Marques del Real Tesoro (like Valdespino, part of the Grupo Estevez) intrigued me.

Two things caught my attention:  an interesting Elmundovino piece about a Supreme Court judgment permitting the use of the phrase “low in histamines” (although the current label makes no mention); and the Estevez website’s intriguing claim that it is the first wine in Spain made using the “Estevez method“. In fact really there is only one issue, because it turned out the Estevez method was developed to eliminate the histamines from the wine. But that only made me more intrigued: why would you seek to eliminate the Histamines? Are people actually allergic to sherry?  Given that I had never heard of anything being low in histamines it seemed an odd marketing ploy to say the least.

In fact it appears that there is indeed a small percentage of the population (below 5%) that apparently do react badly (may suffer headaches and other allergy symptoms) to consumption of food and drink of different kinds (not just sherry but everything from champagne to strawberries). As such, while only a small percentage of that small percentage would have such a reaction to sherry, by eliminating the histamines you would be able to just about truthfully say that your sherry is “less likely to give you a headache”. (Which also explains the opposition to the marketing: the sector in general was understandably unimpressed by the suggestion that their wines were riddled with unhealthy histamines.) I wonder why they don’t say it on the label any more?

Anyway, the wine is also perfectly nice. It is a watery/hay bale gold and has a mineral, yeasty nose. It is zingy on the tongue – real bite and tingle to it and is thick in texture, and then developes a salty almond, nutty flavour.

I just can’t help wondering what it might be like with histamines.