A lot has been written about sherry’s current remake of the Miles Davis classic “birth of the cool“, but whether you want to call it a revolution, resurrection, second coming or involution, whether you want to celebrate the sudden interest, mock the herd mentality, or just point out that the really cool people were into it before it was popular, there is no doubt there is a lot going on.
El Petit Celler had a big event in Barcelona just a few weeks ago, Lavinia raised the curtain socially in Madrid with their sherry palooza a couple of weeks ago, and now this week in Valencia is the Sherryfest itself. Tonight in Enoteca Barolo they will be starting their epic course of 11 classes (of over 2 hours each) dedicated to the wines of Jerez and Manzanilla (they tell me they have sold out the course twice over). Taberna Palo Cortado are in on the act too: last week the great Montse Molina hosted a tasting there and they are due to start their own four session course of tastings lead by Paco del Castillo. More generally, there are tastings and events happening all over town – tonight in Mares Vinos you can try the wines of Bodegas Tradicion, for example. There are new wines knocking around. Recent releases include the new Tio Pepe en Rama and Palmas series, the new Solear en Rama, the Williams Añadas, Equipo Navazos‘ 10 year anniversary release, even an eight grand blockbuster from Barbadillo, and more generally of course there are new and exciting things happening of all shapes and sizes. The blogosphere is on fire with it all: Colectivo Decantado tasted an Inocente and laid down the ground rules for lasting peace in the middle East, Rooster Cogburn have talked of including 60 pages on sherry in their next issue. Coincidentally, Luis G and his minions are also beavering away on a macro-reportage on the state of the sherry and manzanilla nation. Even the mainstream press have woken up to sherry: a fortnight ago El Pais Semanal ended years of silence with a reportage, this week they have followed up with a nice little snapshot of La Panesa, and Andrew Jefford at Decanter just can’t stay away. (The real experts at elmundovino have of course been putting out some cracking stuff all along, but that isn’t news so sorry chaps.)
I am almost certainly forgetting loads of action but you get the picture: it is sherry a go go around here. Exciting times to be alive and interested in sherries in Spain. (Even this blog is into double figures in readership, not counting my immediate family.)
undertheflor.com 
Ahh, then, perhaps I’m number 12? If so, I’m enjoying the heck out of myself. What a great blog to peruse while sipping a pasada manzanilla or a palo cortado.
By the way, most notes here of items new to CellarTracker are being added (about 50 percent of the total, I’d guess), and your notes are being added as Wiki material, with a note to express your permission for posting. However, it would be very much easier for me to use the material if there were a direct connection to your ‘out of 20 point’ scores, either in the text or in a link. Now I have been actually looking through the entire corpus of scores to find the one pertaining to the wine I’m writing about. But otherwise you do a huge job in sharing the electric excitement and progress the world of sherry is entering.
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John you would be very high, or low, in the ranking, if such a thing were to exist.
You can actually see the score if you open the link – it is way down the bottom after the advert, the reblog and like buttons etc, and the name of the section. I know it is a bit out of the way but (a) it sort of happened like that and (b) while I think the scores are good to have as a discipline, I think it is good they are in the background. Sorry if you have had to use a lot of man hours though!
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Thanks for your kind words, and keep up the good work. jht
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And many thanks John for your comments and interest!
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