Sherry special

I am standing in the shade of a marquee.

The bright sun shines down on neat green squares of box hedging crammed with carefully tended flowers in full bloom. Further back are the walls of an ancient castle. A man dressed in impeccable whites stands in front of me, wielding a very large knife.

Slowly he cuts paper-thin slices of the finest Iberico ham and offers one skewered on the tip of his knife. Beside him is another man, in charge of a large container packed with ice and bottles of sherry: cool manzanilla, fino and amontillado. I allow a slice of ham to melt on my tongue before slowly taking a sip of the bracing saline sherry. The two are a perfect match.

This could have been my version of heaven, but it is reality. I was standing in the gardens of the Alcazar of Jerez, as a guest at Vinoble, a fair celebrating all kinds of fortified and dessert wines.

It allowed me to indulge my love of sherry to the fullest extent over three days spent tasting at the fair, visiting nearby bodegas or simply standing in one of the many tapas bars, happily sipping sherry with a few of the local dishes. The three best-selling sherries in Ireland are Tio Pepe, Harveys Bristol Cream and A Winter's Tale. I have recommended the first many times here as one of the best value wines in the world. The latter pair some will remember as part of the 1980s drinks cabinet, or the bottle your granny took out for special occasions once or twice a year.

I tried the two wines recently and, while both were drinkable, neither is in the running for my wines of the year. These are medium-bodied, sweet and slightly raisined.

Both Harveys and Williams & Humbert, the producers of A Winter’s Tale, make some good old sherries but sadly these are not available in Ireland.

Almost all great sherries are bone dry, with a piercing concentration of complex flavours brought about by the unique production methods and long ageing. They can take a bit of getting used to and are not wines to knock back in large quantity. But they are certainly worth the effort.

A great many drinks’ producers try to convince us that their product goes well with food and that it can be used in recipes too. It is usually a desperate ploy to increase sales.

Sherry, however, can be drunk before, during or after a meal. It can also be used in cooking to great effect. A chilled glass of fino sherry is one of the great matches for Iberico ham, almonds, olives, and all sorts of fishy dishes. In Spain I was served an amontillado with a local dish of rice, prawns and pork. It was very good, even better when you added a sprinkle of amontillado to the dish.

I have used amontillado in cookery before. An old favourite is chicken stuffed with chorizo and sprinkled with amontillado that reduces in the juices to create a wonderful savoury tangy nutty sauce. A colleague also suggested it might work well in the gravy for the Sunday roast of beef, something I intend to try. It also goes nicely with cheese (a great way to finish off a meal), cold meats, pies and pâtés. Locally it is frequently drunk with kidneys cooked in amontillado, one of my favourite dishes.

Amontillado is an aged fino where the protective layer of flor (yeast) has died out. It takes on a brown colour and more mature nutty flavours. The best are dry and tangy and concentrated.

Served chilled as an aperitif or with food as suggested, amontillados make for a memorable meal. This week four excellent amontillados that bear no resemblance to the two sherries mentioned above.

Equipo Navazos has been the talk of the sherry world for the past few years. Criminology lecturer Jésus Barquin and Eduardo Ojeda founded the company in 2005. They taste many old barrels of wine and buy specific cuvées from different producers. They are among the best sherries you can buy.

Lustau pioneered the concept of almacenista sherry, single-casks aged in private cellars in Jerez. Delgado Zuleta is a leading small producer, based in the seaside town of Sanlúcar de Barrameda. Valdespino, a revered old house of Jerez, makes deliciously full-bodied wines that call out for food.

If you are visiting Jerez, don't miss the traditional tapas bars, usually little more than a room off the street. When I visited all were offering caracoles, tumblers filled with baby snails cooked in black pepper. La Moderna (Calle Larga 67) was my favourite, and specialised in beef tapas; the oxtail stew was delicious. Try to visit the fish market in central Jerez too; it is one of the best I have come across.