Hildalgo's La Gitana has long been one of the most reliable and true manzanilla sherries, almost water-white, bone dry, tangy wine from Andalucia that is made to be drunk as though it were a white table wine. The big problem with this delicious, quintessential summer drink has been ensuring that it was recently bottled and shipped for it can easily start to oxidise and lose the freshness that is its stock in trade.
The family firm of Hidalgo have recently adopted the new bottle shown, however, so for the moment at least, spotting a fresh bottle of La Gitana should be easy. If you come across the more old-fashioned version, avoid it at all costs. There is also a bottling date on the back label so that you can track stock turnover. They recommend drinking the wine within a year of bottling; I'd recommend drinking it as close to bottling date as possible.
The funny thing is that we used to be rather wary of fortified wines because they were so strong relative to unfortified/table wines. Nowadays Manzanilla and Fino, the light, dry styles of sherry, are shipping out of Andalucia at just 15 per cent alcohol, while the average alcohol level of table wines has been rising steadily for all sorts of reasons – both climatic, viticultural and growers' increasing search for full physiological ripeness – sometimes to over 15 per cent (although should this happen, the winemakers tend to 'humidify' the results back down to a level below 15 per cent which keeps it in a lower tax bracket in many countries). It also stops the drinker getting more of a kick than they bargained for.
Best price in Britain for this appetising wine, quite delicious with olives, salted almonds and/or jamón serrano as an aperitif or with chilled gazpacho as a first course, is £4.99 from Majestic Wine Warehouses if two bottles are bought. Sainsbury's and Waitrose also stock it and special deals are expected on this particular product during July.
The independents tend to stock the useful 50cl bottle, although this can sometimes cost as much as the full 75cl chez Majestic.
See 01/07/03
