During my recent trip to Jerez in Spain, sherry was the only drink on the table. Whether it was to accompany an afternoon snack of tiny fried fish, a pre-dinner nibble of ham and dried sausage, or a hearty entrée of braised mushrooms and beef cheeks, it was sherry or nothing.

Now, hold on: No doubt your thoughts immediately turn to cheap cooking sherry or sickly, syrupy apéritifs, and you can’t imagine serving these by themselves, let alone with good food. Believe me, those imposters aren’t real sherry. True sherry is a vibrant, versatile wine that partners seamlessly with food, savory and sweet. It’s full of zest and acidity, which gives it a refreshing quality, and its slightly saline note acts like a dash of sea salt on anything you’re eating. Plus, the real virtue of sherry as a great food wine is the range of styles available, from light and bone-dry to richly sweet, with deep brown-sugar flavor (yes, there are even delicious sweet sherries that are well worth savoring with dessert). All of which points to there being a sherry for just about everything on the table.

Visit theDrinks & Entertainment pagefor more wines and cocktail party ideas.

雪利酒风格

This fortified wine (meaning that it’s had extra alcohol added to it) comes from a swath of coast-line in southern Spain around the town of Jerez, where cool sea breezes, ample sun, humid warmth, and chalky soils are responsible for the wine’s mouthwatering vibrancy. The differences between one style and another all lie in how the wine is made. Once the local white Palomino grapes are crushed and the juice fermented, the winemaker takes his cues entirely from his brew to determine what style of sherry each barrel will become. In this way, sherry production is more an intuitive art form than it is a precise science.

All sherries start out the same, but in some barrels, a blanket of fluffy white yeast called “flor” blooms across the surface of the wine. This wine is destined to become fino, the driest and palest of sherries. This variety of flor, which doesn’t develop anywhere else in the world and is unique to sherry, protects the wine from air, preventing it from oxidizing and taking on color. To keep the yeast healthy, the cellar master fortifies the sherry by adding some alcohol (about 15 percent, meaning that every 100 ml of wine will contain 15 ml of alcohol). All this yields a delicate wine with a refreshing green apple crispness and a nutty, yeasty tang.

像烤坚果和薯条这样的咸零食（或者就是炸薯条），是Fino酸度酸度的完美搭配。它的美味还使其成为白鱼，沙拉和绿色蔬菜等轻型食物的选择。

Sometimes a sherry that begins its life as a fino deviates from this path. This happens when the flor dies unexpectedly during aging, exposing the wine to oxygen and turning it darker and deeper in flavor. The winemaker will then add a more substantial dose of alcohol to discourage unwanted yeasts from colonizing and to slow the oxidation process. These partially oxidized wines become amontillado. They meld fino’s freshness and acidity with notes of toasted nuts and caramel, a combination that gives this sherry the perfect heft to carry a whole meal.

Being neither too delicate nor too rich, amontillado is the most versatile sherry. It partners remarkably well with a variety of ingredients and favors everything from smoked fish and roast chicken to notoriously hard-to-match foods like eggs, artichokes, and asparagus.

Another variety of dry sherry, oloroso seco, is produced when the flor never really catches on. This wine is fortified to 17 or 18 percent at the outset, keeping rogue yeasts at bay. Without a layer of flor, the sherry matures to a deep mahogany brown. This intensely rich sherry is heavy with roasted fruit overtones and sometimes with dark maple and burnt orange notes, too.

Bring out oloroso for the dishes with the deepest flavors, such as grilled steaks, braised beef cheeks, gamey meats, roasted mushrooms, and rich, funky cheeses. It can work well with rich, briny shellfish, too, such as scallops and lobster.

Not to neglect the best part of a meal, there are sweet sherries to accompany dessert. The dulce, or cream, variety is usually made by adding a hefty dose of grape syrup or sweet wine made from the heady Muscatellike Pedro Ximénez grape to a dry sherry. The most reliable choice is oloroso dulce, which combines the best attributes of a dry oloroso with a toffee-like sweetness, and is delicious with cheeses, nut pies, and chocolate desserts.

为了获得认真的享乐主义体验，选择一种专门用PedroXiménez葡萄制成的甜雪利酒，并标记为P.X。像糖蜜一样厚，带有焦橙，焦糖，香料和坚果的强烈甜味，P.x。非常适合在冰淇淋上淋上毛毛雨或喝甜点。您甚至可以像我在吉雷斯一样自己享受它，就像在玻璃杯里呆在一起。的确，将雪利酒作为菜肴的奇异液体伴奏，饭后用餐，至少要至少一次品尝一次，这似乎是公平的。

感恩节葡萄酒

感恩节的餐点是一种狂野的风味，选择一杯酒与他们一起搭配是一个挑战。输入Amontillado。凭借其固有的多功能性，Amontillado可以处理各种开胃菜，从苦菜沙拉到烟熏鱼到奶油汤。至于土耳其，Amontillado与精致的白肉和更深味的深色肉都很好地协调。它与烤蔬菜和所有其他三层饰物的方式相同，以同等的方式搭配香料和甜味。尽管它具有丰富的风味，但Amontillado仍然具有那种标志性的酸度，可以使您精神焕发并为更多的马拉松餐中的钥匙准备好了。

Shopping for Sherry

There’s a sherry to suit every menu, from bright and zesty fino for a cocktail party with small bites to toffee-rich dulce to match your most indulgent desserts.

Fino

Amontillado

Oloroso Seco

Sweet Sherries

Sherry Know-How

购买
Look for bottles labeled Jerez-Xérès or Manzanilla-Sanlúcar de Barrameda. These indicate a denomination of origin, an official designation ensuring that the wines come from a defined area in and around the Spanish town of Jerez and that they meet specific standards set by a regulatory board.

存储
最好将打开的雪利酒存储在冰箱中。与大多数葡萄酒不同，如果您将其密封得很好，并将其放在冰箱后部的均匀冷，不受干扰的地方，它将在打开后保持数周。

Serving
• Fino can be drunk straight from the fridge; the chill will play up their refreshing characteristics.

• Pull an amontillado or oloroso from the refrigerator about a half-hour before dinner to take the edge off the chill—this will help bring out the sherry’s expansive, warm scents and flavors.

• Serve sweet sherry at brisk room temperature.

•关于玻璃器皿，忘记那些大小的雪利酒眼镜。像其他任何葡萄酒一样，干雪利酒也应该得到一个玻璃杯，玻璃杯足够充足的碗，可以使其华丽的香气膨胀。甜点雪利酒可以在甜点酒杯中供应 - 杂物，但仍然足够大以捕捉它的气味。