Private Weintour nach Jerez de la Frontera

Day trip to Jerez de la Frontera or simply Jerez, city and municipality in the province of Cádiz in the community of Andalusia, in southwestern Spain, located midway between the Atlantic Ocean and the Cádiz Mountains. Known for its picturesue landscape and more famously the centre of the universe for Sherry! Visited two different wineries with our new friend Roger Davies from A Question of Taste. First stop was Lustau Jerez making a fantastic array of sherries for every taste. While not the largest, very well respected and a wide range of sherries. Fascinating history and over 2000 casks aging in the ”cathedral”. Second stop, a small very high quality producer of sherry and brandies. Fernando de Castella. Knock out brandy and several aged sherries. Roger then took us for a delightful outdoor patio lunch in Central old town Jerez. Wandering around the ancient city, its own Alcazar and Cathedral. If you have a chance to travel in the region, we highly recommend calling Roger to be your guide.

Roger was a fantastic guide. Not only is his knowledge of sherry so vast, he also knows the staff and owners of the places that we visited. This means that he's able to get insider knowledge of everything that's happening. When we visited Lustau, they had a setup that was new and he was able to find out that it was for the single-vineyard process that the winery is starting to experiment on. We tasted different sherry wines, vermut, and a sherry vinegar in Lustau. Really opened our eyes on sherry wines! Palo cortado was our favourite. Fernando de Castilla was the other place that we toured and in there we tasted a brandy as well as different sherry wines, some of which we even got to try straight from the barrel! The lunch that followed was also fantastic. Roger ordered various local specialities and some of our favourites were the garlic clams and fried baby squids. This tour was definitely one of the best ones we've had in our trip and Roger played a key role in it. Would definitely recommend to anyone looking into knowing (and tasting) more about sherry wines!

Friday had been a great day in Seville, fantastic Jamon Iberico, boquerones, bacalao in paprika, croquetas de camarones, cold cruzcampo….we were now Tapas aficionados. Tapas with a cold beer were great, but what would they be like coupled with a cold glass of Fino…..tomorrow we would find out on Roger’s Sherry Tour(Lustau winery and Lunch) My brother and I had both seen Roger appear on a Rick Stein Seville episode and not only did he come across as an interesting guy, but was obviously very knowledgeable and passionate about good product. I don’t think we could visit Seville without meeting this guy - the tour was booked and we would be meeting Roger on Saturday morning. The tour started the moment Roger picked us up at our hotel, he was just as enthusiastic as us and conversation flowed until we reached Lustau winery in Jarez. We entered the incredible cathedral like building that housed lines of Sherry Casks in infantry like formation, however this is where Roger gets to showcase the fantastic range of Lustau wines and his extensive knowledge of wines….all the way from the grape to the glass. Not only did we try the Sherries, but also the Vermouths (Red, Rose and White) and finally a Sherry Vinegar. Roger has a knack of animating the whole tasting experience and we couldn’t help but nod in agreement as he imparted his numerous years of experience. Next, we was off to La Cruz Blanca - a smashing local restaurant in courtyard type setting. It was certainly a popular place and when the small plates of food started arriving, it was obvious to see why. Roger had ordered well, but when we had our first glass of chilled Fino with a plate of juicy clams the penny dropped!! Every dish seamed to make the Fino taste better, but then the Fino enhanced the food. Roger had certainly opened our eyes and it was ‘Dos Fino’ for the rest of our stay in Seville. In between the Winery and Restaurant we also walked round a local working fish market - a great place to wet the appetite. Roger couldn’t have been a better host, entertaining, knowledgeable and a throughly likeable guy. If we could have stayed longer in Seville I would have certainly booked Roger for a Jamon/Olive Oil tour. There’s no Question, Roger has good taste!!