Henry D. Inglis

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:

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 15l. up to 65l.; 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 26l. per butt. The value of the sherries exported is therefore 452,000l. sterling—the duty upon the export is 504,600l.; 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 6d. 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 3s. 4d. 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.