Located in the northwest corner of Castilla y Leon, Bierzo has been under vine for some 2,000 years but has only recently emerged on the international wine scene. Now it’s a wine scene to watch, believed by some to be “the next Priorat.”

History

Roman author, philosopher, and naturalist Pliny the Elder penned the earliest written records of vineyards in what is now the Bierzo region of Spain some 2,000 years ago. Viniculture began to advance in a more serious way in the 10th & 11th centuries, thanks to the influence of pilgrims passing through the region en route to the holy city, Santiago de Compostela. Cistercian monks, to whom wine was a vital part of the ritual of prayer and an important form of sustenance, were particularly influential.

Winemaking in Bierzo thrived for 900 hundred years before suffering a severe blow from the phylloxera epidemic in the late 19th century. The regional wine industry took a long time to bounce back. As a modern wine region, Bierzo has mostly been known for cheap, fruity, young reds produced from the indigenous Mencia grape and imbibed predominantly by locals. It was officially recognized as a Denominacion de Origen (DO) in 1989.

Times are changing in Bierzo as visionary winemakers like Alvaro Palacios – who contributed to the revival of the Priorat region in the 1990s – have recognized potential in the region’s old vines, temperate climate, and diverse soil. Winemakers have begun to flock to Bierzo to innovate wines of exceptional quality.

Climate

Bierzo is the gateway between damp, verdant Galicia and hot, dry Castilla y Leon, and boasts a mild climate that offers the best of both worlds. The climate is generally mild Atlantic-Continental with lower nighttime temperatures and colder winters than Castilla y Leon, and less rain than Galicia.

Soil

The soil in Bierzo is slightly acidic and contains fine elements, quartz and slate. Soil types and vineyard location is diverse here, ranging from stony with good drainage to lush and fertile, and resulting in very different expressions of the local grape depending upon where it is grown.

Varietals

Unlike other regions of Spain, winemakers in Bierzo have hewn to original varietals rather than tearing up the indigenous vines and supplanting them with international grapes. Some varietals are grown experimentally, but the focus remains, as it has for centuries, on Mencia and Garnacha Tintorera for reds, and Godello, Donna Blanca, Malvasia, and Palomino for whites.

Mencia can range from light and fruity to deep and concentrated, but a hallmark of the varietal is what wine writer Eric Asimov calls its “haunting, complex aroma” evocative of blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, and wildflowers. Unusual, unruly, and altogether spellbinding, the popularity of this wine among cork dorks comes as no surprise. Lighter incarnations also make for great summer sippers, and can even work as a lightly chilled red – we suggest geeking out with a bottle today.

I recently took a trip to California, first to visit wine country and then to kick back in the SoCal sun. Living in Ohio for my whole life, I had never really been exposed to California wine and this was my first trip to the west coast. Sure, I’d participated in the occasional tasting, but this was new to me.

Dry Creek Valley is one of Sonoma County’s world famous wine regions—Russian River Valley and Alexander Valley being the others. It’s only about 16 miles wide, but Dry Creek is known for its Zinfandel. Interestingly, it grows more Cabernet Sauvignon than Zin, 3000 acres more to be exact. The area’s most important white grape production is Sauvignon Blanc. It’s known as one of the top Zinfandel producers in the state, and over 50 wineries. Just down the road is Healdsburg, and the town square is rife with tasting rooms. There were around 26 while I was there. Here are a few of my favorite tasting rooms and wineries of the appellation.

Michel-Schlumberger

I hate to play favorites, but I loved Michel-Schlumberger! It also helped that I have a few friends there and got to spend a lot of time on the property, and taste a lot of wines that I otherwise wouldn’t have. The winery is organic, and very beautiful. There are flowers and vegetables abound. You can tour the property on foot and find some beautiful views. The wine maker is Mike Brunson who is awesome, and makes equally awesome wines. Their La Brume Chard is perfect for summer.

Bella

Bella started in 1995, and is primarily run by Scott and Lynn Adams. Who, like me fell in love with Dry Creek and purchased land to begin wine making. The winery is made up of four vineyards:, Big River Ranch, Lily Hill Estate, Bell Canyon Vineyard, and Two Patch which is made up of what else? Two patches of vineyard. As we arrived we walked past a safari truck that took us up the somewhat steep acres of vineyard to look out upon the valley. I took my favorite picture of wine country here. The tasting room is in their wine cave, which makes it a must buy just for the aesthetics. The two patch Zin is pretty good too.

Toad Hollow

This is by far the best winery mission statement I have ever heard: “People want value, and they also want good one. One of the missions of Toad Hollow is to provide both.” Especially in today’s economy, we want good wine and a good price. Their Dry Pinot Noir Rose was voted best value by Wine Spectator at under $10 a bottle. Their labels and wine names are a lot of fun too. The risqué sparkling wine I took home had a picture of a can-can dancing toad on the label.

Artiste

I loved Artiste’s style. They not only give you bites of food expertly paired to their wine, they also refuse to put tasting notes with their wines because every palate is different, and very easily swayed. The tasting room itself is covered in really unique and beautiful art, but the best by far is the art on the wine bottles. Rather than a traditional label, they reproduce a painting, and that goes on the front of each bottle with the name of the wine on the back. My favorite wine I took home was from here.

Amphora

I loved Amphora, and Amphora loved me! The winemaker, Rick was so cool; the second time I came to visit he was making custom wine blends for me to try! I was also pulled here because of the amphora, I love history, so I figured by default I would love his wines. I was right. How could I not? They are award winning after all. He has expanded his wine list since beginning in 1997 to include everything from a Chardonnay to Cabernet Sauvignon.

Once the drink of “man’s men” everywhere consumed with great bravado over cigars after all the women had left the room, Port is Portugal’s most famous wine. This sweet, deliciously powerful wine can be intimidating for this reason. Meticulously hand crafted using centuries-old methods, the category is worth a closer look: Port isn’t just for the good old boys anymore.

History

Port is simply sweet wine fortified with un-aged brandy made in the Douro River Valley in Northern Portugal. This remote and difficult to farm area lines the banks of the famous Douro River (“River of Gold”) which begins in Spain and dumps into the Atlantic at the town of Oporto. Port has long been associated with the British, who helped innovate the style and have been ardent advocates and robust consumers since the beginning. The famous Port firms were started by English families, as evidenced by their names: Cockburn, Graham’s, Warre’s, etc.

Port as we know it today developed in response to the particularly wonderful vintage of 1820. At the time it was common to fortify wine with grape spirits to stabilize it during the long voyage from Portugal to England. 1820 was an amazing year for the region, which produced a ripe, naturally sweet wine that sold like gangbusters. The following year Port shippers attempted to mimic these flavors by adding a higher quantity of brandy to the new vintage earlier in the process, arresting fermentation and resulting in a sweeter wine. Over time, more and more neutral grape spirits were added during fortification as the category developed. Several different styles of Port are available today.

Climate

The Douro River Valley is known for merciless summers that are long and often excruciatingly hot. Temperatures routinely reach 100 degrees Fahrenheit and can climb as high as 120, so dry and hot that the vines will even shut down production and wait until nightfall to transfer nutrients to the grapes. The Douro River carves a curvaceous path, leaving varied elevations and changing orientations towards the sun in its wake that allow for hundreds of independent microclimates.

Soil

The Douro Valley is so notoriously difficult to work, one wonders how they began to grow grapes there in the first place. To cultivate vines, the rocky hillsides had to be chipped by hand with hammers and pointed poles, or blasted with dynamite, then mixed with soil, shaped into step-like terraces, and planted with vines. The schist and granite soil allows for good drainage, which means grape roots must dig deep for nourishment here, becoming more stable as they burrow for sustenance.

Varietals

The five red grape varietals considered most important for making Port are: touriga nacional, tinta barroca, tinto cão, torriga francesca, and tinta roriz. These varietals may be blended in any combination and proportion, and blending is what gives this wine it’s finesse, subtly, and character.

To make Port, winemakers crush red grapes then macerate them for 24 hours as sugar converts to alcohol and fermentation begins. After half the natural sugar in the wine has been converted to alcohol, neutral grape spirit (un-aged brandy) is added to the wine, killing yeasts, halting fermentation and leaving sweet wine behind. The sweet wine is then matured and aged in a unique style, depending what kind of Port it will be.

Port Styles

There are several unique styles of Port, all of which can be grouped as those aged predominantly in wood and those aged predominantly in bottles. Wood-aged Ports are to be consumed within two years of bottling and shipping. Bottle-aged Ports can are meant to mature over time and can sometimes age for decades.

White Port: This basic, straightforward wine accounts for just a small amount of Port production. The majority of white Ports are a little sweet, though a light, dry leve seco Port and a sweet Port called lagrima also exist.

Ruby Port: This blend of young wines is the least complex, most inexpensive style of red Port, typically aged in barrels or tanks for 2-3 years. Fruity and straightforward with almost no bottle aging before release.

Young Tawny: Basic and uncomplicated, much like ruby Port. Young tawny grapes yield a light-colored wine, to which white Port is occasionally added to lighten things up.

Aged Tawny: Typically sold in 10, 20, 30, or 40 + year denominations, aged tawny is a blend of Ports from several different years aged in the barrel until they take on characteristics from the oak, transforming from bright red to tawny with a silky texture. The year designation is applied according to flavor, meaning a ten-year-old tawny tastes as though it is made from 10 year old wines. Colheita tawnies are a special, rare reserve tawny that come from a single harvest and must age 7 years in the bottle.

Vintage Character Port: Vintage character Port is made from good quality wines aged 4-6 years in oak. They are boldly expressive but less expensive than true vintage port.

Late Bottled Vintage Port: This type of wine hails from a single good vintage aged 4-6 years in oak then bottled. They are ready to drink immediately and cost about half as much as the finer, more sophisticated vintage Port.

Traditional Late Bottled Vintage Port: Made by very few shippers, traditional late bottled vintage Port ages for 4 years in oak and is then matured in the bottle by shipper until it is ready to drink. It can age for decades.

Vintage Port: The most rare and expensive kind, Vintage Port is made only in exceptional years. All grapes come from the same vintage from top vineyards in the Douro. The wine ages for 2 years in the barrel and can mature for several decades in the bottle.

Single Quinta Vintage Port: Single quinta vintage Port all comes from a single vineyard in a single year. They are not usually made in years declared for vintage port, the idea being that certain microclimates can produce a great vintage where the region on the whole might not be as spectacular. These are made like vintage Port, unfiltered, aged 2 years in barrel, then for a decade or more in bottle.

Notes on consumption: Any Port that throws sediment should be decanted before serving. Always decant vintage Port, single quinta vintage Port, traditional late bottled vintage Port.

Comprised of 118 immaculate, centuries-old villages, the region of Alsace is renowned for its charming, storybook feel. But the wines made in this region are not the demure, sticky-sweet stuff of Disney films. Characterized by bold fruit and racy acidity, they are expressive of the region’s unique and exceptional terroir, and considered by some sommeliers to be the best wines in the world for food pairing.

History

Situated on the eastern border adjacent to Switzerland, and Germany, Alsace is one of the smallest regions of France but one of the most densely populated and politically important. Ownership of Alsace has been hotly contested since France annexed the region in the 17th century. Like a darling child shuttled between ruthless, warring parents, Alsace has changed ownership many times throughout history, including a 75-year stretch where it changed hands between Germany and France four times. The largest city in Alsace, Strasbourg, is the seat of many important international organizations, making it one of the most politically important regions of Europe.

Alsace is one of the rare regions of the world that produces almost exclusively white wine. Though many of the varietals produced (such as gewürztraminer, Riesling, and Muscat) have sweet reputations, their interpretation in Alsace is virtually always dry. The two rare exceptions are Vendange tardive wines made from very ripe, late-harvested grapes, and sélection de grains nobles, made from late-harvested, grapes affected by botrytis, the noble rot of Sauternes. Alsatian sparkling wine is made in the méthode champenoise and called Crémant d’Alsace.

Wines of Alsace are almost always made and labeled as single varietals (unlike pretty much everywhere else in France) designed to be expressive as possible of terroir, using indigenous yeasts, and neutral containers (such as stainless steel tanks.) Most producers make 20-30 different wines sorted into regular, reserve, and late-harvest bottlings, with a typical producer making regular bottlings of all five of the usual varietal suspects, several reserve bottlings in each category, and up to six of the vendange tardive wines (should the harvest allow.) This is the math that makes 20-30 wines per house possible.

Climate

Alsace may be France’s northernmost winemaking region (after Champagne), but don’t let the longitude fool you. The Vosges Mountains act as a buffer against Atlantic influences, making the climate sunnier and drier than you may expect. The vineyards run in a long, thin, north to south strip on the Eastern slopes of the Vosges Mountains with the Rhine and Ill rivers to the East, allowing for good drainage and sun exposure. The climate is semi-continental with cold, dry winters and hot summers.

Soil

Soil in Alsace is extremely diverse, including chalk, clay , granite, schist, volcanic rock sediment, and a pinkish sandstone called grès de Vosges. Fossilized seashells left over from the Triassic and Jurassic periods, when the Rhine valley was underwater, bring a high concentration of minerality to the soils, which many blame for the greatness of Alsatian wine.

Varietals

Auxerrois, Chardonnay, and Sylvaner are permitted, in addition to the five main varietals that dominate production in Alsace:

Riesling, once the king of wines and prized even above Bordeaux and Burgundy, Riesling is the most prestigious wine in the region, known for its steely minerality, and stone and citrus fruit. Riesling is more sensitive to terroir than other grapes, and thrives in the region’s unique soil.

Gewurztraminer, known for bold fruitiness, and flavors of lychee, grapefruit and honeysuckle.

Pinot gris, is the local star, is a high impact wine not to be mistaken for the much lighter-bodied Italian Pinot Grigio, marked by concentrated flavors of peach, vanilla and earth. Alsatian Pinot Gris was once known as Tokay, presumably a misnomer as it has nothing genetically in common with Tocai of Northern Italy or Tokaji of Hungary, who won the battle over the name many years ago.

Muscat, which comes in two forms: Muscat blanc à petits grains and Muscat ottonel. The two are elegant dance partners and are usually blended to produce a dry, dramatic, aromatic wine reminiscent of peaches, orange peel, musk.

Pinot Blanc from Alsace is an approachable white, with appley flavors and a creamy texture, often blended with auxerrois, gently bending the Alsatian rule of single varietal wines.

Pinot Noir is the only red made in Alsace, and until recently a minor player, often so pale that it was barely more than rosé. In recent years, Alsatian producers have put more effort and money into producing Pinot Noir with excellent results, so don’t be afraid to pick up a bottle and give it a whirl.

Wanna learn more about Alsace? Sign up for this week’s Crash Course, Wednesday, 7/8 at 7 pm at Downtown Wine & Spirits.

Join The Second Glass at Cafe Luna in Cambridge for another special night of wine, jazz and good times! After May’s sold out Soiree, we decided to throw another to celebrate summer finally being upon us! This time around, we’re delighted to include some of the Cafe’s delicious offerings in a Crash Course complete with both wine and food!

Starting with a Crash Course on Spanish wine at 7:00, Matt Haymer, wine buyer and owner for Cafe Luna and Tyler Balliet, chief wino at The Second Glass, will walk attendees through the wine wonders of Spain. This special Crash Course is $25 a person, and includes 5 different wines to taste, delicious tasting menu from the Cafe, and a whole lot of expert knowledge.

Soiree Menu:

Mini Quiche with Roasted Asparagus and Leeks
Gramona Cava Grand Cuvee 2006

Watermelon Gazpacho
Sitios Verdejo 2008

Prosciutto and Fig Pizza
Castell del Remei Gotim Bru 2006

Braised Short Ribs Over Polenta
Creta Ribera del Duero 2006

Assorted Spanish Cheeses

Tasting of Sorbet and Gelato
Lustau Dry Amontillado “Los Arcos” Sherry

After the Crash Course, everyone is welcome to get in on the Soiree! Starting at 8:30, kick back with a glass of yummy & affordable vino (Cafe Luna has a great selection starting at $6!) on the patio, chill with The Second Glass team and friends and listen to some free jazz!

Where: Cafe Luna [403 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, MA]

When: Monday, July 20 7:00 PM Crash Course, 8:30 PM Soiree

Cost: Crash Course: $25, Soiree: Free

This popular crash course was an epilogue to the session of the same name at Wine Riot! back in April. Now that we’re in the full swing of rosé season, we felt it appropriate to return to the pink stuff that’s perfect for porch sipping.

A favorite of wine enthusiasts around the globe, rosé is light, crisp, and pink! Ranging in hue from light pink to deep red, this is one of the world’s most misunderstood wines. To begin with, rosé is NOT the sticky, sweet white zinfandel you see in a box, nor the blush wine you see in a jug. A lot of people are hesitant to even approach rosé, thinking it’s going to be like it’s pink counterparts.

While some rosés do have incredibly bright fruit flavors of raspberry and strawberries, others are deep in color and drink more like a red wine. Soaking grape skins in the juice during the fermentation process is what gives red wine its color and tannin. Rosés are made the same way, but only instead of soaking the skins for months, they are only in contact with the juice for hours, giving the wine a bit more body and structure than a white. While the process was made most famous in the south of France, rosé wines are made in every major wine region in the world.

We tasted an array of the stuff, starting with lighter summer sippers, leading up to more robust and darker colored wines. Rosés are perfect for solo sipping, or to pair with lighter options like goat cheese, salad, or grilled chicken.

	2008 Triennes Rosé Provence, France – $13.99
	A light colored, crisp rosé, this wine was a favorite of the crowd. “Real men can and WILL drink pink!” was the reverberating phrase throughout the night, not only from Jeff but Tyler as well. Both are resident rosé fans, and can agree that this wine is perfect for porch/roofdeck/stoop sipping. Just get outside and drink it!
	2007 Domaine de Fontsaine Gris de Gris Corbières, France - $15.99
	Downtown’s Wine of the Week! From the Loire Valley, this rosé is quite unique. It’s made from pinot gris– a white grape! Smooth and light with a taste of berries on the finish, this is a wine to have glass after glass of.
	2008 JM Raffault Rosé Chinon, France – $15.99
	Also from the Loire, this wine was more robust than the previous rosés. With a vegetal and minerality to it, it’s a crisp alternative to a New Zealand sauvignon blanc. Drink with seafood!
	2008 Vitiano Rosato Umbria, Italy
	This wine is noticeably darker than the previous rosés. Stepping up to the plate and starting to play rosé hardball, this wine is easy to drink and has notes of dark cherry and vanilla for a smooth and pleasant finish.
	2008 Castello di Ama Rosato Gaiole, Italy – $15.99
	This wine was also a hit with the crowd. Reviewed in Wine Spectator recently, there’s been a surge of interest in this particular rosé. However, it sold out from suppliers in February! Too bad for the late comers, great news for all the locals! Downtown’s got some stock left and stands behind it being a killer rosé.
	2007 Yorkville Cellars Rosé de Franc Mendocino County, California – $14.99
	The last rosé of the night, this wine was the overall favorite of the crowd. Dark, robust and packed with stone fruit flavors, Jeff refers to it as a “juicebox” wine. Clearly, it’s ideal for sipping on all night (or summer) long, and is organically produced. What’s not to love?

All wines are available at Downtown Wine & Spirits in Davis Square.

Crash Course Wine Seminars are back after the Riot! and they’re better than ever. It’s summertime in Boston and we have a whole new slew of courses coming up designed to turn you and your friends into wine badasses.

As usual, our goal is to empower you, the drinker, with more knowledge about wine by way of expert education and tasty sips. We are working with Boston’s top names in wine to bring and fun, informative and most importantly, completely unpretentious wine class. All Crash Courses are $10 a person, and include 4-6 different wines to taste and a whole lot of expert knowledge.

Get Your Learn On

Jeff Golden, Wine Buyer and all around rockstar at Downtown Wine & Spirits, along with experienced Second Glass Staffers, will bust knowledge and pour glasses of great vino.

Where: Downtown Wine & Spirits [225 Elm St, Somerville, MA]

When: Wednesday, July 8th from 7-8pm

Cost: $10

Located on the Eastern border of France, the Alsace region is Germany’s French mistress. Between the 19th and 20th centuries, it changed hands between the two countries 75 times– phew! We’re pretty sure it’s through its identity crisis, but the wines of Alsace show a clear loyalty to both countries. With the crisp feel of classic French whites, and the sweetness of German rieslings, these wines represent great aspects of both countries Alsace has called home. Hop across the border and back, in tasting gems from this region and the countries it sleeps between!

It finally happened– the much hyped, inevitable, AWESOME Sherry Crash Course. Downtown’s resident sherry enthusiast and wine buyer, Jeff Golden, hosted the evening, with assistance from Tyler Balliet. Sherry is one of those wines that not too many people even know is wine. Sherry’s strong presence in cooking and the made famous sweet cream sherry give the stuff a bad rap, and we tasted through a large array of sherry to really understand what is it, where it comes from, and what it tastes like!

Sherry comes from Spain, where winemaking goes back to essentially the beginning of time. Starting in the 14th century, the Spanish began to export their wine, and preservation became the key. Thus, sherry was born. To be legally deemed sherrry, production must come from the Cadiz province of Spain, and most of it from Jerez. There is a rough series of sherries, ranging from light (Fino) to heavier (Oloroso), made primarily from Palomino or Pedro Ximenez grapes. Sherry is meant to be drank with food– it screams for pairing. We tasted these sherries with Manchengo (for the Finos and Amontillados), and Roquefort (for the Olorosos and Alvear Solera) cheeses, marcona almonds, green olives and salty spanish ham. Jeff explained that one reason why sherry is so misunderstood in this country is because sherry “goes against everything Americans do with drinking”, since it should never be far from food.

Sherry production begins the same as any other wine; grapes are grown and picked from vineyards, crushed and transferred to barrels. It’s in the barrel that the wine goes from regular table wine to sherry. The wine develops yeast on top of it that matures it and leads to fortification. A standard California wine will take about 3-4 days to fortify, sherry takes that many weeks, thus the higher concentration of alcohol. Sherry is then moved through barrels that lead to levels of classification. No sherries have vintages, as its a three year process to make sherry. The wine is moved from barrel to barrel, each time a little left behind, and added to the next, to make the wine come together.

	Lustau Light Fino Jarana – $21.99
	This food-friendly sherry is light and has a very nutty flavor. Made from palomino grapes, this Fino was a great introduction to how sherry is made. Sherry is a fortified wine, aged in barrels under a layer of yeast called flor. The flor keeps the sherry from getting too sweet, because once the yeast is killed off, the wine will begin to sweeten, as Tyler likes to say, “Yeast eats sugar and poops alcohol”.
	Alvear’s Fino Montilla – $16.99
	This is a “lighter morning sherry”, and a prime example of Pedro Ximenez not being sweet, as can typically be seen in sherries. Palomino grapes have a harder time growing in Alvear’s region, and thus the use of PX in sherry. Sherries used to be made from many other varietals, but as is the same with many wine issues from the turn of the century, the phylloxera destroyed essentially all other sherry-making grapes.
	Manzanilla La Guita – $11.99
	Still a fino, the Manzanilla is a bit darker in the glass than the previous two. It’s also a touch nuttier, tasting wonderfully with the manchengo cheese, marcona almonds and salty ham we had out to taste with. It’s also a bit more round than the previous finos, which can be more sharp due to the higher alcohol. It’s with this wine we learned about oxidation, and the name of the game with sherry is just that. A sherry’s development and character are all determined by how much the oxygen gets to hang out with the wine. It’s due to the flor that this wine has such a rich caramelized flavor.
	Lustau Dry Amontillado Los Arcos – $18.99
	This dry, classically styled Amontillado is noticeably darker than the previous sherries. It’s a prime example, Jeff informed us, of what you can do with Palomino. About 40 percent of the way through the aging process, the flor dies and the wine begins to develop the richness oxidation provides. Drink this sherry with salty ham or olives– it’s not meant to pair with anything sweet!
	Alvear Carlos VII Amontillado – $29.99
	Named for the Spanish King Carlos VII, this is the best Amontillado Alvear makes. The entire category was named for this sherry. Like all the Alvear sherries we tasted, this sherry is made from PX, and remains dry– similar to German wine. Amontillados tend to smell sweeter than they taste, the reason being you’re experiencing different parts of the aging process. We found this Amontillado to be more acidic than the previous, with earthy undertones.
	Lustau Dry Oloroso Don Nuno – $28.99
	The next category of sherry we dove into was Oloroso. Early on in the process, the very best fruit & wine go to Fino production, where there is nowhere for the flavors to hide. Fino is so straightforward and light that there must be youthful fruit for it to be compelling. That being said, Oloroso doesn’t start out as anything too special, but through the aging process it comes into its own. This sherry should be drank alongside grilled meat, or sharp cheeses such as bleu or chevre. Its dry makeup makes it a good “morning sherry” that “proper Spanish gentlemen would have a glass of before going to review the fields”.
	Alvear Solera 1927 PX – $27.99
	For our Grand Finale- The Pancake Sherry. Well, according to Tyler. But in all seriousness, this sherry was the group favorite, and is amazing. Solera style sherry making means that this particular sherry started its aging cycle in 1927. This is the oldest form of wine production in the Cadiz region. This wine is 100% PX and begins to be fortified much earlier than Fino or Amontillado to preserve some of the residual sugar. The result is a sweet, syrupy sherry that is quite tasty on its own, or would taste wonderful atop ice cream, or in Tyler’s case, pancakes. The wine holds flavors of sweet, caramelized honey, brined olives, and raisins. For the price point, Jeff explained, you will not find a wine so complex as this one. With sherry, the winemaking process embraces what oxygen does to white wine, and the result is delicious.

All sherries are available at Downtown Wine & Spirits in Davis Square.