Jerez de la Frontera

Our next destination was Jerez, a town in the sherry triangle. Our Seville hotel was conveniently situated to the San Bernadino train station and we had a pleasant one hour trip on a Media Distancia train that went up to speeds of 160 km/h. The Jerez train station is very decorative.

We had temperatures in the low 30s today, it seems a little cooler than Seville as it is closer to the Atlantic. In the afternoon we visited Bodegas Tradicion for a sherry tasting and tour. We learned about the painstaking process of producing fine sherry through the solero system. The end product will be a blend of many years and is very labour intensive with the transferring of different vintages between the barrels of sherry. Palomino fino, pedro ximenez and moscatel are the varieties grown in this area and used for sherry. They are hand picked at night according to our guide.

The long days seem to fly by here and we are soon on Spanish time, dining late. We went to a recommended restaurant, Reino de Leon, and it was superb with a great choice of tapas and raciones (larger serves), also a good selection of wine by the glass or bottle, and of course, sherries. Food highlights were melt in your mouth croquettes, beef carpaccio and tender steaks. We will return. As we walked back to our hotel, the plazas were full of people enjoying the balmy summer evening.

Tuesday we attended a show at the Royal Andalusian School of Equestrian Art to see the dancing horses, it was a marvellous show. It is actually a university so the performers are a mix of students and their professors. Then around the corner to Sandemans which is a large sherry and port producer. Their tour and tasting was very informative. We found the medium and sweet sherries more approachable than the fino which is very dry.