Sherry Bodega Visit: Bodegas Gonzalez Byass

In September 2010 I visited several sherry bodegas. Here are pictures and a few notes from Bodegas Gonzalez Byass. 

(The grounds of the bodega have grape vines covering the streets to provide shade.)

(A train takes people on a tour around the bodega.)

(One of the rooms for special events.)

(A barrel signed by Picasso.)

(Some Tio Pepe out of the cask. You can see the flor broken up in the glass.)

• Make Tio Pepe
• Over 200,000 visitors per year to bodega
• Tio Pepe grapes are and will always be collected by hand, not machine
• Higher vineyards considered better – get more of the wet wind
• Theyre one of the only companies to grow PX in Jerez. Others buy it from Cordoba
• Have a big catalogue of vintage-dated sherries- Anadas
• Corks are loose on sherry barrels to let air in, but most air freshness comes from when you change the levels of the sherry in the solera
• The El Duque brand starts as Tio Pepe fino, aged longer
• The higher the percentage of alcohol, the more lignin it absorbs from the wood. 
• Nuttiness comes from the grapes. Coconut comes from the wood.
• Palo Cortado- probably started back in the day when they couldn’t accurately meauser alcohol percentage, so they put too much in the fino and killed it