XERES, AND ITS WINES.
Journey to Xeres; the Vineyards, and their Produce; Amount of
Export, and Official Tables for Ten Years; average Export and
Price; Increase in the Trade; the Xeres Grape; Details respecting
the Manufacture of Sherry; Pale Sherry and Brown Sherry; a curious
Sherry; Amontillado; Adulterated Sherries, Inferior Sherries, and
Low-priced Sherries; the Xeres Cellars; Varieties in Taste of
Sherries; Knowledge of the Merchants; Management of the Vineyards;
Wine Houses in Xeres and in Port St. Mary; Price of Sherry in
Cadiz; Port St. Mary; the Theatre, and Liberal Opinions; Strength
of the Liberal Party in this Neighbourhood; Return to Cadiz by
Land; Isla; the Tongue of Cadiz.
I of course proposed visiting Xeres, the famous nursery of sherries,
before finally leaving Cadiz for the eastern provinces; but learning
accidentally, the day I arrived in Cadiz, that two of the gentlemen to
whom I carried letters, were about to leave home in a few days, I
resolved to lose no time in visiting Xeres, and to defer, until my
return, any inquiries respecting Cadiz and its neighbourhood.
Accordingly, the morning after my arrival, I walked down to the quay, to
take my place in some boat for Puerto de Santa Maria. It blew so hard,
that no boat had crossed the bay that morning; and the boat that agreed
to carry me across for about five times the usual fare, had no sooner
cleared the harbour, that we saw the signal hoisted, declaring the port
shut, owing to the dangerous state of the weather. We had a very rough
and a very quick run, reaching Port St. Mary in little more than half an
hour. From Port St. Mary to Xeres, it is about three leagues; and I
immediately hired a caleche to carry me thither: the driver wished me to
take an escort; but I had brought a light purse from Cadiz, and was
resolved to risk it, rather than part with a couple of dollars. There is
nothing interesting in the road between Port St. Mary and Xeres. The
country is much the same as that which lies between St. Lucar and Port
St. Mary,--wild, badly cultivated, and thinly peopled. Nothing occurred
on the road worthy of recording; and I reached Xeres about mid-day. I
was provided with letters to the three principal houses,--those of
Gordon, Penmartin, and Domecq,--and immediately hastened to present
myself. In place of detailing the visits which I made to the different
cellars, and the information I received in different quarters, in which
there would necessarily be much repetition, I shall throw together, as
connectedly as I can, the results of my inquiries and observations
respecting the growth, preparation, and commerce of sherries.
The vineyards of Xeres lie scattered; but supposing them to be all
concentrated, they might occupy about six miles square. They are mostly
planted upon slopes; and the nearest vineyard to the city, is distant
from it about half a league. It is impossible to approach to any thing
like precision, in estimating the produce of these vineyards; all that
can be known of this, must be gathered from the amount of export; but
even the export tables do not indicate the quantity produced in the
vineyards of Xeres; for, besides the difficulty arising from ignorance
as to the yearly accumulation or diminution of stock in the cellars of
the different merchants, the wine growers import from the country lying
to the right of the Guadalquivir, a quantity of wine called Moquer,--a
cheap, light wine, which they mix with the Xeres before it comes into
the hands of the grower: wines, so mixed, are called inferior sherries;
they are quite well known to the Xeres merchants as mixed wines, and
pass as low-priced sherries into the English markets, swelling the table
of sherries exported from Cadiz. But although it is impossible to fix
accurately the quantity of sherry produced, the export tables, of
course, afford some data, and are interesting, as shewing the changes in
taste and fashion, and as throwing light upon the general state of the
trade.
The following note of exports I obtained through the kindness of Mr.
Brackenbury, his Majesty’s consul at Cadiz.
“The export of sherry wine and of others under the same denomination,
from Xeres, and Port St. Mary, has been for the years following, as
under:
“In the year 1821, there were exported 1499 butts.
--- 1822 --- 11,508¾
--- 1823 --- 12,476½
--- 1824 --- 15,059½
--- 1825 --- 21,297¾
--- 1826 --- no return.
--- 1827 --- 20,150
--- 1828 --- 26,901
--- 1829 --- 17,839.”
I expected to have received the note of the first half-year’s export of
1830; but I could not obtain it before leaving Cadiz. I may state,
however, that the export of 1830 was expected to fall below fourteen
thousand butts.
Taking the average of the last eight years from the foregoing table,
presuming the export of 1830 to be fourteen thousand butts, the average
export will be seventeen thousand four hundred butts. The price varies
much, from 15_l._ up to 65_l._; but as the lower priced sherries form
the bulk of the export, the average must be stated low; taking the
result of the opinions of the most competent judges, the price of the
export overhead, may be stated at 26_l._ per butt. The value of the
sherries exported is therefore 452,000_l._ sterling--the duty upon the
export is 504,600_l._; so that if freight and the profit of the merchant
in London be added, the consumption of sherries exceeds one million
sterling yearly. It will also be observed from the table, that the
export for the years 1827, 1828, 1829, and 1830, has exceeded that of
1822, 1823, 1824, and 1825, by seventeen thousand five hundred and fifty
butts, though the export of the last two years, has fallen under that of
the two years immediately preceding them.
The grape that produces the wine of Xeres, is a green grape; it is
allowed to become perfectly ripe, being plucked just before it begins to
shrivel: this, in average years, is on the 9th of September,--a day
marked in Catholic countries, by being the day before the feast of the
immaculate Conception; but in less forward years, the plucking is
deferred until the 15th of September, beyond which day it is never
protracted. After the plucking, those growers who are the most attentive
to their wines, place the grapes in baskets, exposed to the sun for
forty-eight hours,--turning and sorting them all the while, according
as they appear to require this attention.
It has often been said that sherry is a compound wine; but this is a
mistake. The best pale and light golden sherries are made from the pure
Xeres grape, with only the addition of two bottles of brandy to a butt,
which is no more than one two-hundred-and-fiftieth part. This brandy is
of an excellent quality; it is imported from Catalunia, and seemed to me
scarcely inferior to the best and purest cogniac. Neither are the deep
golden and brown sherries of the best quality, compound wines, though
they may be called mixed wines. The difference is thus produced:--If a
butt of brown sherry be wanted, a butt of light sherry is boiled down to
one-fifth part of its bulk, till it acquire a deep brown colour; and one
half of this quantity is added to a butt of the best pale sherry, of
course removing from it as much as makes room for this additional
tenth-part of a butt of boiled wine. When it is said that a butt of
light sherry is boiled down, it is not to be understood that this is
wine of an inferior kind; it is wine produced from the Xeres grape,
planted upon a lighter soil, near the mouth of the Guadalquivir, and
producing a somewhat lighter wine. To make a butt of brown sherry, a
butt and a half is therefore required, deducting a tenth part; but the
brown sherry is not more expensive, because the grape from which the
boiled wine is made, is more abundant than the other grape, and
consequently cheaper. This boiled wine is also mixed, in the proportion
of one half, with unboiled wine,--not to be drank, but to be added in
smaller or larger quantities to other sherries, for the mere purpose of
giving them colour, should this be desired by the English merchant. It
is evident, therefore, from these details, that although brown sherry
cannot be said to be a compound wine, inasmuch as it is all the wine of
Xeres,--the pale sherries are nevertheless the purest; and all the
gradations of colour upon which so much stress is laid, have nothing to
do with the quality of the wine, but depend entirely upon the greater or
smaller quantity of boiled wine used for colouring it. Taste in wines is
one of the most capricious things in the world. I tasted, in the cellar
of a merchant in Port St. Mary, a butt of sherry, more than one half of
which was boiled wine,--not used for drinking, or meant for sale; but
kept merely as colouring matter, and which came off as dark coloured as
porter; and I found it delicious. I told the merchant to make an
experiment of it, as curious sherry, and to send it to the English
market; but he said no one would give the price at which he could afford
to sell it: for, to prepare this single butt, three butts had been
required--nearly half a butt of the unboiled wine, and more than two
butts and a half of the boiled wine, reduced to one-fifth.
Amontillado, the produce also of the Xeres grape, is made either
intentionally or accidentally: if it be intended to produce amontillado,
the fruit is plucked a fortnight sooner than for sherry. But it is an
extraordinary fact, that if a hundred butts of wine be taken from a
Xeres vineyard, and treated in precisely the same way, several of them
will, in all probability, turn out amontillado, without the grower or
the merchant being able to assign any reason for this. Amontillado is
the purest of all wine; for it will bear no admixture of either brandy,
or boiled wine; whatever is added to it, entirely spoils it.
Sherries, when adulterated, are not usually adulterated by the London
wine merchant, with the exception of those extremely inferior wines,
which, from their excessive low price, no one can expect to be genuine
wines, and which are probably mixed with Cape. But the class of wines
which pass under the denomination of “low-priced sherries,” are not
adulterated in London, but at Xeres--by the grower, not by the exporter.
These wines are mixed with the wines of Moguer, and with a larger
proportion of brandy; and the exporter, in purchasing them from the
grower, is quite well aware of their quality: but, being ordered to send
a large cargo of low-priced wines, he is forced to purchase and export
these. It may be laid down as a fact, that genuine sherry, _one year
old_, cannot be imported under thirty shillings per dozen; and if to
this be added, the profit of the merchant, and the accumulation of
interest upon capital on older wine, it is obvious that genuine sherry,
four years old, cannot be purchased in England under forty-five
shillings.
The principal depositories of wine at Xeres and at Port St. Mary’s, are
not cellars, but lightly constructed buildings, containing various
chambers. There are generally three tier of casks, laid horizontally
upon beams; and in the principal vaults, as many as two thousand five
hundred butts may be seen. I noticed many casks without bungs; this, I
was told, is not at all prejudicial to the wine, but, on the contrary,
if a brick be merely laid upon the hole, to keep out dust, the admission
of air is considered an advantage. Sherry is a very hardy wine; and is
well known, by the merchants of Xeres, to be improved by exposure to the
weather. An illustration of this fact lately occurred: the roof of one
of the wine-houses fell in; and, not being rebuilt, the wine was left
exposed to the opposite temperatures of winter and summer; and this wine
was celebrated as the finest that for many years had left Xeres.
Before visiting Xeres, one cannot have any idea of the variety in
flavour, and the various gradations of excellence in sherry; and, after
tasting the primest samples of each kind, from the palest straw, up to
the deep brown, it is impossible to say which is the finest. I need
scarcely repeat again, that it is entirely by the aroma and by the
taste--not at all by the colour, that sherries are to be judged. The
_wide_ differences in colour, depend entirely upon the proportion of
boiled wine; while those slighter shades, perceptible among the pale and
light golden wines, are owing to some small difference in the ripeness
of the fruit.
A few houses, of the greatest capital, are growers, as well as
merchants; but, generally speaking, the wine is bought of the growers
when on the lees. The exporter who is also a grower, has an advantage
over the other merchant, in the perfect security he has, that no wine of
Moguer has been mixed with the sherry. But the merchants are not afraid
to trust to their knowledge and experience, in being able to detect
adulterated wine; and besides, those who are perfectly accustomed to the
trade can tell, before vintage time, by merely looking at a vineyard,
within two or three butts of the quantity the vineyard will produce: so
that, when one comes to treat for the produce of those vineyards which
he has had in his eye, he discovers by the quantity, whether it has been
much adulterated with Moguer. An experienced merchant possesses an
intimate acquaintance with the quality of the different vineyards; among
which, the most essential differences are found, even when they lie
contiguous. It is, of course, this difference in the quality of the
vine, that creates the difference in price and quality among the genuine
unadulterated sherries. In this trade, as in every other, the capitalist
has an advantage; for, if he advances a few bags of dollars to the
cultivator during the summer, he has the first choice of the November
sales, when the article is always cheaper.
It is difficult to say what is the return for land under a vineyard in
Xeres; this, of course, depends upon the quality of the produce, and
partly upon the convenience of road and market. But all the vineyards of
Xeres, require great expense, and unintermitting labour. The following
is a summary of the management of the vine producing sherry.
The first operation is to take up the canes, or props, immediately after
the vintage is gathered: the second operation immediately follows this;
it is, to dig small pits about a yard square round each plant, that the
vines may obtain a permanent advantage from the rains. There is then an
interval of labour, till after the first rains have fallen; and in the
early part of January, when this has taken place, the third operation of
the vine-grower is, to prune the whole plant; and, it is a curious fact,
that the vineyard which is the earliest pruned, is the latest in
budding; the plant too, is always better, the vine stronger, and more
firmly rooted. The next operation is to close the pits, in order that
the moisture which has been received, may be retained. After this, but a
little later, the whole vineyard is dug up, to loosen the soil. The next
operation is to free the soil of grass and weeds, by turning it over;
and this is repeated once, twice, or thrice, according as the rains may
have reproduced the weeds, and rendered a repetition of this labour
necessary. All these operations are concluded by the middle of March.
When the vineyard has been thoroughly cleared of weeds, the next care
of the husbandman is to smoothe the soil, which is done twice, at an
interval of three weeks: this done, he cuts off the vicious sprouts at
the roots of the plants, which hinder their nourishment; he then
pulverises the land to a fine powder, and, lastly, he puts in the stakes
to support the coming harvest. These are the distinct operations to be
performed in succession, and each at its fixed time: but these do not
comprehend all the labours of the vineyard; for, during the whole of
this time, there are many lesser cares with which the grower must occupy
himself; the most unintermitting and most laborious of these, being the
search, and destruction of insects. Such are the toils which are
necessary to procure us the enjoyment of a glass of genuine sherry. The
Xeres vintage is not considered an uncertain crop; the climate in that
country may be depended upon; so that labour is certain, or almost
certain of its reward. The wine trade employs, one way and another, the
whole inhabitants of Xeres, and Port St. Mary: the latter is a very
rising place; it is a more convenient point of export than Xeres, being
close to the sea; and new wine establishments are every year springing
up there. At present, there are sixteen wine-houses in Xeres, and nine
in Port St. Mary: the former would gladly change their position, if this
were possible; for the merchant of Xeres has a manifest disadvantage in
not being able to see his goods shipped, and put beyond the reach of
damage and plunder. At Xeres, it is not always possible to know the
state of the weather at sea, and it often happens that a cargo is sent
down to Port St. Mary, where it lies many days exposed to both damage
and roguery. The city of Xeres itself, possesses no interest apart from
that which arises from its wine trade. Good sherry is an expensive wine
even at Port St. Mary and Cadiz. The small wine, the _vin ordinaire_ of
the district, is about 6_d._ per bottle; but this, although passing
under the generic name of sherry, is not produced from the Xeres grape,
though there is so much similarity, that the sherry flavour is at once
detected in it. But either at Port St. Mary or at Cadiz, a bottle of
good sherry is charged 3_s._ 4_d._ in a coffee-house or hotel; and if
any thing very superior be asked for, a dollar will be demanded.
After spending one day in Xeres, and another, in riding over the
vineyards, I returned to Port St. Mary, where I had also the pleasure of
partaking of the hospitalities of its merchants. In the evening I went
to the theatre, where I found good reason to be greatly surprised at the
license which was permitted on the stage--so opposite from any thing I
had before witnessed in Spain. A friar of the Carmelite order, was
introduced, as one of the dramatis personæ, and he was made to carry on
an intrigue with the daughter of a barber, and to offer her the money
which he had just received for some masses; and in another part of the
play, a song was sung in evident burlesque of the kind of singing heard
at religious ceremonies. With all this, the audience was delighted. But
neither in Madrid nor in Seville, nor in any of the towns in the east of
Spain, would this have been tolerated by the public authorities; nor
would it even have been acceptable to the audience. If the liberal
party can be said to be strong in any part of Spain, that part is the
country and cities surrounding the bay of Cadiz. I heard several
merchants of this neighbourhood express an opinion, that an attempt to
revolutionize this part of Spain, would be more likely to be successful
than if made in any other quarter. The population of this neighbourhood
is large, and would be a formidable party if opposed to the government.
The population of Cadiz exceeds seventy thousand, St. Lucar contains
twenty-two thousand, Puerto de Santa Maria seventeen thousand, Puerto
Real twelve thousand, Isla thirty-two thousand; altogether forming
within a very narrow district, a population of one hundred and fifty
thousand, without including villages.
The storm that commenced the morning I left Cadiz, had increased; and
when I walked down to the quay at Port St. Mary, to cross the bay to
Cadiz, I found that that port, as well as the port of Cadiz, was shut;
and I was accordingly forced to hire a caleche to go round the bay by
land, a distance of seven leagues and a half. I scarcely regretted
this, as I should thus have an opportunity of seeing more of the
country.
Leaving Port St. Mary, I passed through an almost uncultivated country,
towards Puerto Real, skirting the edge of the bay; the country on the
land side being covered with furze, and intersected by hedges of
magnificent aloes and Indian fig; and with wild olives thinly scattered
over the soil; and farther back, were seen the outer ridges of the
Sierra de Ronda. As we proceeded, a singular spectacle was presented on
the side towards the bay: immense lagunes lay between the road and the
sea, thickly sprinkled with white pyramids, and assuming the exact
representation of an extensive encampment. These were pyramids of salt:
the sea is admitted into shallow reservoirs excavated in the soil, and
the salt is formed by evaporation. Nothing can be more uninteresting
than the road round the bay, till we enter the Isle of Leon, which is
separated from the main land by a drawbridge. Soon after, I reached
Isla, which is certainly one of the prettiest towns in Spain; I never
saw a cleaner or prettier street, than the principal street of Isla.
Every house is of the purest white, and every range of windows on every
house, has its green veranda. Isla is a sadly fallen town: the great
naval school, and extensive docks of Caraccas, in its immediate
neighbourhood, once gave employment to thousands, and life and
prosperity to Isla; but now, there is not a ship on the stocks, and not
an _eléve_ in the college.
Soon after leaving Isla, I entered upon the long and narrow tongue of
land which connects Cadiz with the mainland; the tongue becomes narrower
as we approach Cadiz, and during at least a league, it varies from two
to three hundred yards broad, including a part of the sands, which are
covered at high tide: the causeway itself is not one hundred yards
broad. About a mile and a half from Cadiz, I passed a magnificent
fortress, called the Cortadura, because it cuts the tongue of land
across. This fortress was built in the year 1812, and it entirely covers
the approach to Cadiz on the land side; presenting a formidable range of
batteries, mounting one hundred and forty guns. Before entering Cadiz,
another strong battery must be passed, so that Cadiz may be considered
impregnable on the land side; at all events, not to be reduced without
immense sacrifices.