According to the New York Times, sherry is finally cool.  Sorta:

In the last year or so, the drumbeat seems to have been heard. No, sherry hasn’t taken the world by storm. Nobody’s bidding up the prices, which remain highly reasonable, with world-class wines starting around $15 a bottle. But in small specialty shops, in restaurants where ardent sommeliers hold sway and in bars mixing creative high-end cocktails, fuddy-duddy sherry is taking its turn as a new hip thing.

So, essentially, the people who have always touted sherry’s awesomeness- and it is awesome- are finally being heard by a small group of people that are likely to be open to the idea of drinking sherry.  I guess that’s a win?

Regardless, wine geeks have always loved sherry but many non-initiated still pigeonhole it as fussy English ladies’ tipple.  And, while there is a varied spectrum from light, crisp Finos to nutty Amontillados (and even that extra special category, Pedro Ximenez) most of the public is only familiar with the mass-produced, gooey stuff like Harvey’s Bristol Cream.

Of course there’s nothing wrong with HBC, espeically when it acts as the gateway to a wider world of more complex sherries.  My father kept a bottle of it in the kitchen to enjoy when he came home from a tiring day at work.  I remember one time, after fielding a particularly nasty phone call from the ex boyfriend back at college, pouring myself about eight ounces out of the bottle.  I was still underage and was just looking for anything to numb the pain, but I was surprised how much I liked it.  The sweetness probably didn’t hurt but there was something else- that nutty, oxidized note that to this day I still viscerally love.

Apparently most of these new sherry drinkers aren’t coming to it by way of their parents’ liquor cabinets- they’re drinking it in cocktails. There’s a burgeoning sherry cocktail movement! That I knew nothing about.

“The sherry cocktail movement is probably the single most meaningful or driving force in the recent resurgence of sherry,” said Steven Olson, a former sommelier whose company, a k a Wine Geek, has been actively promoting sherry for 12 years.

Well, good.   I’m not sure how you would find that something as complex tasting as a sherry needs to be covered up in a cocktail.  But, hey anything to get more to jump onto the sherry bandwagon.

Via: NYT

Image by Phil Kline for NYT