Brandy De Jerez

Still a contender

One of Europe’s oldest – and newest brandies.  Old because it was probably first distilled a thousand years ago by the Moors who occupied southern Spain.

New because sales were minimal until after 1945 when Spain’s rapid economic growth created a demand for cheap spirit similar to that found in other countries during periods of rapid industrialisation.

The name is in fact misleading for the grapes, the wine and indeed the new brandy required come from the bleak plains of La Mancha south of Madrid, but are matured in the cellars of Jerez.

They come in three qualities, Solera, matured for a minimum of six months in oak, Solera Reserva (one year minimum) and Gran Reserva (three years old).  The Spaniards claim with some justification that using the solera system greatly speeds up the maturation process.

The brandies are made using every type of distillation and most of them have additives like nuts and almonds and the prune juice used so lavishly by Osborne.  The result is a whole range of styles, made in pot stills as well as in continuous stills – which themselves provide new brandies of very different strengths.

They range from Osborne’s rich brandies to Gonzales Byass’ Lepanto, the driest, most Cognacy of brandies de Jerez.  The brandy’s golden age covered a mere two decades.  In 1960 domestic demand was a mere 25m bottles.

By 1980 it had risen eight-fold having performed a vital role in enabling the major Sherry firms to survive the long-term drop in sales which has marked the past 40 years. 

Unfortunately, as the table shows, a combination of ever-increasing duties (which were virtually non-existent during the Golden Age) and a generational shift to beer and Scotch has led to an apparently unstoppable decline in domestic sales ever since.

By 2002 sales were down to 31m bottles, despite attempts to reinvigorate sales by promoting the brandy as a trendy beverage for mixing.  For Brits, Domecq’s Fundador was for a long time synonymous with Spanish brandy as a whole but today exports, which account for about a third of sales are, as the table also shows, largely concentrated in Spanish-speaking countries,  above all the Philippines.

But the future, as for Cognac and Armagnac could lie with the more up-market brandies like Sanchez Romate’s Cardenal Mendoza, beloved of the richer Cuban exiles in Miami.