2024 Wine and Food Pairing Sherry

Hey there's Wisconsin Wine Guy. I sure hope you enjoyed the virtual wine and winery tour where we explored Spain and more specifically the region of Spain, the Jerez region, which produces sherry. As I said the video, as I said before it began, as I'm saying it again now, sherry is one of those wines that are completely underlooked or undervalued, you know, that I feel people should get into because there's a lot, you know, when it comes to sherry and its process and how it's made. So as promised I'm going to do a simple, you know, pairing of the sherry, two sherrys I have here and tell you about those and on my snack plate, on my snack plate I have some cheese, white cheese, chicken, chocolate, 72% cacao, I have mixed nuts of pecan, walnut, almonds, I have dried blueberries and black dried cherry, cranberries. So I want to see how these are going to go. This is just a very, very simple snack plate just to taste the different wines, these different cherries and see how they act and interact, react and interact with the different flavors I have here on the dish. So now, so water, Wisdom and Water, actually two gentlemen that owned this, this started back in 1800s and these two gentlemen owned it, Wisdom and Water, started producing, when they wanted to produce all the different styles of sherry, you know, so you go from Fino down to Muscat, you know, so they produce all the different levels of sherry but then as years went past and the Gonzalez family purchased the company and they began to focus on the Fino, the Amatillado and the Cream Sherry, which is what they still do today. And so, doing a video, I had these, you know, and I wanted to, again, as I said, do a tasting with these cherries, you know, to go along with the video. I'll make sure I have the two videos linked together so you can go back and forth if you like or watch, if you can watch one or the other. So what I wanted to do, when I started doing the video, was to give you an idea. Now both of these are made with Palomino grapes. I mentioned in the video the, the Sherry House Lou style, we all, most of us probably heard of the brand Lou style, but there are lots of sherry brands on the market, you know, for you to explore. And I like to stay in true Wisconsin Wine Guide style, you know, not necessarily go after, you know, highly rated brands but also to explore something new. Having had tasted or drank Lou style in the past, you know, I'll be able to compare, you know, and see where they're at. But it's been a while since I had Lou style but I'll be able to compare and it'd be nice to do a blind tasting with this brand and the Lou style brand. But again, we have the Fino Sherry, coming in at, what do we got here, alcohol. Oh wow, alcohol. You know, I wish one day the alcohol is put in the same area. Okay, alcohol 17% here in this Fino Sherry. You'll find Fino Sherry go from 17 to 20%. And then for the Montellato, you're looking at alcohol of 20%. Both of these are $7.50 in size. You know, the Solara or the Flora, I should say, has been established, you know, for the one making the Fino since 1908. And the Solara has been established for the Montellatos in 1912. Okay. So what that means is some of the original or the base of the home, you know, the Solara is a process that they utilize in making the sherries, you know, so the youngest at the top and the oldest at the bottom. And each time new sherry is added, it gets filtered down, filtered down, filtered down, you know, so in the ages. So it becomes a blend of different sherries from different years. That's what happens, you know, and when there's different designations, you know, I advise you to really go and research, you know, on sherrys. Maybe I'll do a on-demand tasting for sherrys. Yeah, that'd be a good idea, you know, with having a breakdown as you can see all of that and what sherrys are about. But so from 19, the original Solara is from 1912 here in 1908 there, you know, so we're talking about a process sort of like if you had a sourdough starter, you know, that was started from your great-great-great grandparents, you know, it's been handed down and now you finally have the original starter. What's what pieces of the original starter, you know, and so this is what you have here, you know, so talking about generational tastes, you know, for this. So it's always nice, you know, it's almost like tasting history in a sense, all right, you know, so everything has an origin and that's what those videos are about. So let's get to the tasting. Now again, I want you to look to take a look at the color, you know, there's two different colors, you know, so you have the fino here and if we had the manzanilla, it'd be right in the middle, which would be, uh, actually be on this end here, so it'd be a little bit lighter and you have a little pale color here and as you get to the matel-matelado, it gets a little bit darker. Oloroso will be darker and darker and so a lot of cream is going to be cream, you know, cream meaning it's going to be sweet but it's going to be rich, you know, not necessarily cream cream, you know, like you find some of the, uh, I say American type series, you know, but it's going to be more rich, you know, more intense, you know, more intensely sweet, you know, also, but if it's balanced right, it's going to be pretty nice, you know, so I will do, uh, try to find all the sherrys and then do a tasting of all the sherrys and pomegranate glass so you can get a look at that, that's always fun to do. So, that being said, here are the two sherrys, the fino being dry, you know, the, uh, matelato being on the third scale of the dry scale, so you have one, two, three on the third scale of the dry end, you know, so a little bit more intense, uh, sweetness versus here on the nose, ah, man, you do pick up floral notes, fruit, and I think of, um, when I smell this, I think of, like, uh, caramelized, uh, peaches or apricots here, all right, uh, coming over here, ah, I mean, wow, on that nose, the richness that you smell on the nose here, you know, that depth of flavor, you know, it kind of matches, you know, if you ever made, you know, caramel from scratch, how it goes through those stages, you know, from light, sort of like here, but sort of like here, but this is happening over time, but, you know, sort of like when you start making caramel, you have your sugar syrup, and as you heat it up, it gets darker, darker, darker, darker, and darker, and there's a point you go to that it begins to scorch, okay, it gets so dark, it begins to scorch, you have that burnt taste, burnt sugar, all right, but you definitely pick up that nose here of how the differences in these styles are, so you do get some fruit notes, more dry fruit, like raisin, nutty, almost like, uh, like a tawny port here, but caramelization of sugar, ah, so now for the taste, I'm going to do another taste and rinse of the taste, still, that doesn't change, uh, in this case, you wouldn't be able to tell by the nose that this is going to be dry, but it is dry, nice acidity, elegant, smooth, nice long finish too, you definitely can, can, can get the sense of, you know, food with a sherry like that, the phenol, now here, it's like a junk, it still has a dry finish, more acidity, and I have these at cool temperatures, not chill, but it also has a more fullness, you know, uh, a flavor on the palate, so let's get to the tasting, let's go with the cheese first, okay, simple white cheese, I was listening to him talk about different dishes in the video, and you're right, I mean, very clean, you know, here with the phenol, you know, but you can even go lighter, that cheese may be a little bit too flavorful for it, now, oh, the cheese is great, with the cheese, the cheese is great with the matelado, wow, they both are good, but I prefer the matelado, uh, with this farmer's cheese, now let's do, uh, some meat here, simple chicken, I totally can see this with a plate of different tapas, I totally can see that, wow, there's all these different flavors, you know, going on here, and this is like cleansing, refreshing your palate, I can't wait to try this chill, I don't have a chill, but here we try chill, now the chicken with the matelado, because of the depth of flavor that exists here, that is able to handle, you know, powerful flavors, now I'm leaning this way, you know, there's so much complexity going on here, how it blends with the food, um, let's do a couple of nuts, oh, one of these, pecan, walnut, and almond, now, that was great with the nuts, that did very well with the nuts, oh, now, let's find out here, same mix, pecan, walnut, almond, wow, they both did pretty good, but the fino wins this time, the fino did the best with the blend of nuts, do you ever sit down and just pour some wine, and just have these different flavors, and seeing which wine is going to play nice, I encourage you to do that, it's such a fun thing to do with your, by yourself, and now, let's do some dried fruit, I have a dried blueberry, and dried cranberry, you know what, I'm going to do both the blueberry and the cranberry together, why not, have some sweetness to it, a little bit of tartness, let's see with the fino, not bad, you know, a little sweetness there, kind of takes away from the fruitiness of the fino, but not bad, a bit blended with the nuts together, it'd be great, for the matalado, now, it wasn't bad also, it almost made it taste like the fino, this is where, because of the sweetness, we probably go to the next phase, oloroso, okay, when you start getting into something a little bit sweeter, you see how it's working out, as you go down the line, imagine having all the different cherries here, and then tasting, okay, now, last but not least, why not, let's do a combination of nuts and fruit, so the pecan and cranberry, nice, pecan and blueberry, also nice, the combination of the fruit and the nuts together, we have a tie, but the nuts alone, the fino, I thought was better, so I should have kept track, so we go in line, the cheese was the matalado, the chicken, the matalado, the nuts alone, the fino, the dried fruit, the matalado, so matalado's ahead, but the combination, I think it was a tie, okay, so now, for chocolate, why not have chocolate, you know, with these, you know, and most people, when they think about having chocolate, they want chocolate with something sweet, or they think that chocolate would go with a cabernet, for example, but trust me, having had done hundreds of wine and chocolate pairings in my time, every red wine doesn't go with chocolate, okay, there's a whole lot of factors involved, and I actually have a, I'm producing it on demand for a wine and chocolate pairing, but there's a lot that goes into wine and chocolate, finding the right chocolate and the right wine that go good together, but one thing that's always overlooked, is most people don't think about white wine with chocolate, white wine is a fantastic partner with chocolate, in fact, the more citrusy the wine, the better it goes with chocolate, all right, here we go, 72% cacao, dark chocolate, was prior, the fino, I'm not gonna say anything, until I have a little bite, okay, so here's the verdict, contrast is good also with wine and food pairing, so there was a slight contrast going on here, the acidity was nice to work with the chocolate, the contrast was going on with that bitterness of the chocolate and the fruitiness here in the fino, which almost give you a sense of a citrus, a citrus dip in chocolate, so I thought this was a good combination, it did make the wine even drier, but I thought it worked well together, when it came to the amontillado, because of that caramelization that exists there in the dry fruit, to go with that chocolate, one, and either one of these, one didn't overpower the other, I mean, they played very nice together, but they were so different, I'm gonna call this a tie, because they were so different, now there you have it, don't overlook sherry's, I encourage you to go out, get some sherry's, you can do lu style, or you can get a reputable brand, ask your wine shop salesperson, what would be another good brand outside of lu style, if you want to do lu style, you know, but lu style, you can't go wrong with it, give it a try, if you can get different styles of sherry, do that, set up something simple, don't go real crazy and confident, set up something simple that you could taste, if you want to do a bunch of different spreads, with different flavors, with something simple that you can taste, you know, how each wine, or each sherry, will pair with the dish you have, because so, say again, mine was simply just cheese, white cheese, chicken, nuts, and dry fruit, I'm going to go deeper after this video, so there you have it, I hope you enjoyed this intro to sherry and simple food pairings, and be sure to watch the video on sherry, get a little bit of historical reference, and this is Wisconsin Wine Guy saying as always, let your palate be the guide when selecting your wine, and I'll see you next time, where should I finish off with, this one, ciao, two, three.