SCOTCH AND SHERRY
Best of both worlds
This month sees the launch of the Society’s first-ever documentary, telling the story of sherry casks from the forests of Galicia to the cooperages and bodegas of the ‘sherry triangle’ in Andalucía. Unfiltered editor Richard Goslan produced Scotch & Sherry: A Flavour Odyssey and explains here what to expect, and how it all came together
PHOTOS: PETER SANDGROUND
If you’ve been entrusted to undertake a dream job, you’d better start by assembling a dream team. So when I received the green light to pull together a plan to shoot The Scotch Malt Whisky Society’s first ever full-length documentary feature, I had to make sure I had the right crew in place.
First on the list – the Society’s head of whisky creation, Euan Campbell. He’s the one who already knows the Spanish cooperages and bodegas best, he’s already immersed in the world of sherry casks, and when I twist his arm enough, he’s even willing to appear on camera.
Talking of camera – for the video side of things, the job went to Gareth Goodlad, a long-time contributor to the Society and always a safe and inventive pair of hands – dab hand with a drone as well.
I needed someone to take care of audio, and Gareth lined up the perfect candidate in Julia Rodriguez Caro – Barcelona-based but with family ties to a sherry bodega in Andalucía, a fluent English speaker as well to help me out when my Spanish language skills reached their limits.
We weren’t just shooting video though – for our planned Scotch & Sherry print publication, I needed a stills photographer who would relish the chance to get in amongst every aspect of the sherry story, so I signed up regular Unfiltered photographer Peter Sandground (just don’t call him a snapper…) and the team was complete.
The logistics were also a challenge, getting from Scotland to the remote area of Galicia first in the far northwest of Spain and then down to the ‘sherry triangle’ of Andalucía in the south. I was helped out hugely by the team at the Forestal Peninsular sawmill in the north and Tevasa cooperage in the south, under the charismatic leadership of Narciso Fernández – a fountain of knowledge not only about Spanish oak and sherry, but about Spanish culture, history, the arts, the food…you name it.
ABOVE: where better to spend our first evening with the documentary team than inside a gigantic cask, along with Narciso Fernández
PICTURED: getting back to the very start of the cask creation story, deep in the forests of Galicia in northwest Spain
SUSTAINABLE VISION
Seeing a majestic oak tree that could easily be 100-years old being felled in a few minutes with a burst of chainsaw activity is strangely humbling – especially when you discover that a single tree could end up providing the wood to create no more than three casks. We learn about the sustainability of production, the preservation of the oak forests and Narciso’s vision for leaving the industry in better shape for the next generation than the one he inherited.
At the sawmill, we witness the process where these tree trunks start to take shape into the staves that will make up the casks. There’s technology at play – but a lot of hard graft as the machine operators manhandle logs through a series of deadly saws and James Bond villain-type slicing apparatus. It’s a great opportunity to get up close to this part of the process – just not too close.
ABOVE: staves start to take shape at the Forestal Peninsular company’s sawmill near Lugo in Galicia
PICTURED: Julia Rodriguez Caro in a Jerez tabanco
A WARM WELCOME
Travelling from north to south Spain involves a transfer at Madrid airport and a nervous run between terminals to try and make our connection to Seville. It feels like a lost cause until we discover the flight has been delayed – it makes a change to welcome a flight taking off late.
We’re soon in Jerez de la Frontera, a town that never fails to charm. It can seem deserted in mid-to-late afternoon, with the shops mostly shut and hardly any life on the streets. But once the sun sets and the temperature drops, it suddenly bursts into life. We head to Camachuelo, one of our favourite tabancos, or sherry bars, where the host Salvador remembers Euan and me from a previous visit. He provides a seemingly endless offering of local dishes, accompanied by a fantastic range of sherries – the perfect introduction to the ‘sherry triangle’ and sherry as an amazingly varied wine that pairs with a wide range of foods – a glass of fino with some prawns, oloroso with the local Payoyo goat’s cheese and Pedro Ximenez as a sweet nightcap. It’s good to be back.
“I know better than to visit a cooperage with anything that might even be approaching a hangover – the combination of relentless noise, heat, flames and the need to be alert to all the activity around you is best experienced with a clear head”
Richard Goslan, Single Cask writer
HEAT AND FIRE
I know better than to visit a cooperage with anything that might even be approaching a hangover – the combination of relentless noise, heat, flames and the need to be alert to all the activity around you is best experienced with a clear head.
It’s a privilege to see the team at Tevasa cooperage at work – starting with a pile of staves at one end of the process and then loading beautifully crafted casks onto lorries at the other.
Throughout the cooperage, the craftsmen take time to demonstrate what they’re doing, tolerating both video and stills cameras being pointed at them and politely edging us out of the way when we get too close.
By comparison, the bodegas are beautifully peaceful, and even feel relatively cool in the shade out of the Andalucían sun. This is also where the scale of the sherry-seasoned cask industry starts to reveal itself – some of these bodegas are monumental in scale, with thousands of casks sitting seasoning specifically for the Scotch whisky industry. There are familiar names all around us from some of Scotland’s biggest distilleries, but it’s also lovely to see so many casks with SMWS stencilling on the ends – and to get a taste of some of the fantastic sherry that’s being used to season them. Gareth’s ability to fly his drone inside the bodega also helps to capture the scale of the endless rows of seasoning casks.
SHARING THE LOVE
A trip to the sherry triangle isn’t complete without a proper tasting of the different varieties of wine, and for that we’re fortunate to meet up with Manuel Torres Zarzana, the head oenologist at Bodegas Barón. He’s also wearing a Dead Kennedys T-shirt, which is somehow very pleasing – there’s no undue formality or stiffness here, just a passionate sherry winemaker who’s keen to share his love and knowledge of the wine. His Spanish is a challenge – spoken fast and furious – but at least when he gets a taste of our Society Cask No. 95.66: Dali-esque bodega landscape, I’m able to catch his opinion: ‘muy agradable’ – very pleasant.
ABOVE: sampling an oloroso sherry that’s being used to season one of our SMWS casks
PICTURED: husband-and-wife team José Antonio Zarzana and Laura Murphy at Ximénez-Spínola bodega
BODEGA HISTORY
One of our final stops is to the Ximénez-Spínola bodega, where Euan and I have visited before, and we’re greeted like old friends by husband-and-wife team José Antonio Zarzana and Laura Murphy. This is a special place in every sense – for the hospitality we receive, for the way that the bodega works exclusively with the Pedro Ximénez grape variety and for the quality of the casks that the Society is able to secure from the bodega’s solera system.
If the bodegas that store sherry-seasoned casks that have been built specifically for the whisky industry maybe lack a little romance, the bodega at Ximénez-Spínola oozes it. The solera systems here date back to 1918 and 1964 – and José Antonio himself is the ninth-generation of his family to be making wine at Ximénez-Spínola, which dates back to 1729. To take a tour of the bodega and vineyards, followed by an exquisite meal matched with Ximénez-Spínola sherries, is a special treat.
ABOVE: inside the historic bodega at Ximénez-Spínola with José Antonio Zarzana
PERFECT SYNERGY
Our last night brings everything full circle, meeting Narciso Fernández in Jerez again for a walking tour of the entrancing old city, soaking up its history and gaining more insights and appreciation with every step. The final stop is at one of Narciso’s favourite haunts, where Euan pulls out a bottle of Society’s Cask No. 68.95: A negroni riff, which has been additionally matured for two years in an oloroso hogshead.
“Cheers my friends – this is a fantastic whisky,” he declares. “We started with the forest, continued with the cooperage, then experienced fantastic sherry wines. This is the final step, to finish with this wonderful product.”
We’ll drink to that, whether it’s a glass of Society sherry cask-matured whisky or a rich oloroso. Here’s to Spain, Scotland and the journey that takes you to a plaza in Jerez de la Frontera celebrating the synergy between our two worlds. I hope you enjoy the <Scotch & Sherry: A Flavour Odyssey> documentary when you get the chance to see it.
Check https://smws.com/may-flavour-hunter-festival/ for information on screenings of 'Scotch & Sherry: A Flavour Odyssey' in May during our festival season, and watch this space for how you can view it in your part of the world soon
ABOVE: the perfect end to our odyssey, sharing a Society sherry cask-matured whisky in Jerez with Narciso Fernández from Tevasa
PICTURED: Narciso at the Forestal Peninsular sawmill in Galicia