Change your attitude

People constantly tell me I have the best job in the world. "Drinks editor?" they say. "That means you get to drink all the time, tasting new drinks…"

I protest vigorously on most occasions. It is a great a job but it has its difficult and challenging parts just as much as the next job.But picture me standing in a cool cellar in the centre of Jerez, Southern Spain, surrounded by casks of aged sherry being given a tutored tasting by one of the world's experts.

It's at moments like this I begin to see everyone else's point…

Sherry does conjure images that clash and jar somewhat. After all, its traditional home is Jerez, on the South-Western tip of Spain. It is steeped in Moorish architecture and culture. In Spain it is drunk by old and young alike, across the country; as refreshment on a night out, a pre-dinner drink and even a tipple to tickle your tastebuds during dinner.

And yet its traditional home in the UK is on the sideboards and drinks cabinets of an older generation - the perfect tonic ahead of a roast dinner. And, rather oddly, it is drunk out of curious little schooner glasses - not something you see in Spain, where it is drunk either out of tumblers or normal wine glasses.Changing perceptions

One man who is determined to change this attitude is Beltran Domecq. Part of the Domecq family that has part-dominated the drinks world in the last 50 years (most recently as part of Allied Domecq) he is now ambassador for Harveys sherry. And he wants UK consumers to view sherry in exactly the same manner as the Spanish do - part of a good night out, with good food.

As part of his mission he decided to invite some trade journalists to Jerez to sample what he was talking about - and this brings us back to the cellar, the sherry and me.

Of all the sherries that we tasted, from Harveys Bristol Cream, to ever older examples, one particularly stood out. One taste of the 30-year-old Fine Old Amontillado may alter your reality - permanently. Never before will you have tasted something that leads such an enjoyable assault on your tastebuds.

And when you read some hoity-toity wine critic musing over a particular vintage's long finish, let him or her have a sip of this bad boy. The incredible taste lingers on and on - as Nigel Tufnel in the film This is Spinal Tap would put it: "You can go and have a bite [to eat] and you'll still be feeling that one." Fantastic.

Beltran himself is charm personified and one of those people you could listen to all night, such is his passion and breadth of knowledge.But with passion comes frustration - considerable frustration. Spend a few hours with the man and you begin to understand how he feels that the product he has spent his entire adult life creating and refining is not taken seriously by many people outside Spain.

"A tremendous amount of work and selection goes into creating our sherries - Bristol Cream, for example, is a very complex product," he says.

"Our sherry is a very under-priced product. It has been aged for at least three years and a three-year aged wine in France would cost so much more."

To combat this Harvey's is launching a schooner amnesty and perfect serve campaign for Harveys Bristol Cream. Lucy Sewell, marketing manager for the brand, says: "Harveys' long-term strategy is to encourage people to drink sherry chilled in white wine glasses. "The aim is to broaden sherry's appeal. Sherry should not be consumed solely by the older generations at Christmas - it is for young people, too, and works extremely well at any time of year."

It will be a tough call. It is not so much getting UK consumers to drink sherry out of a differnt glass. Not all of them will be lucky to have the education and introduction to sherry that I and my fellow journalists had.

But if you want to offer something with a bit of originality and style to your customers, be it at the table after dinner or at the bar, sherry is worth exploring.

Just try to think of Jerez rather than a Sunday roast while trying to sell it to your customers.

The facts​

- Sherry is actually the English word for Jerez (a Moorish name). But people make fortified wine all over the world (much of it very poor quality) and call it sherry.

- Wine has been made in Jerez for over 3,000 years.

- Harveys was a wine merchants founded in Bristol in 1796 which would bring fortified wine from Spain and age it in the UK. Hence the very British name, Harveys Bristol Cream, for a very Spanish product.

- Wine blenders came to Jerez to get the best products and wines from the sherry shippers and the first product they came up with was Harveys Bristol Milk - changed to Bristol Cream in the 19th century and the name was then patented. Later on, the company decided to come to Jerez and invest there and blend the wines at origin

- The vineyards here are not irrigated - it is forbidden. "So every year we do end up praying for rain; just at the same time of year when people in the UK are praying for the sun!" says Beltran.

- The main grape variety (almost 98 per cent) planted is Palomino Fino - for dry, white sherries. It is harvested in August/ September.

- The Harveys sherries are aged in wood - most of the barrels will be 40 years old at least because they don't want the aged sherries to have too much of a "woody" flavour [as found in traditional chardonnay].

- Harveys Bristol Cream is a blend of four different sherries (Fino, Amontillado, Oloroso and P.X, a very sweet, treacly fortified wine). You age the fortified wines as a vintage and then transfer the wine into cask and the solera system - which helps maintain the quality of sherry produced over a longer period of time.