Sherry vinegar

Once photographed ‘floating’ in a vinegar bottle for a magazine feature as a self-confessed vinegar bore, I have been a champion of sherry vinegar long before it found its way on to the shelves of supermarkets and fine food shops.

My newspaper and magazine columns over many years contain tens of thousands of words about it and all things Spanish, in. I have taught cookery courses in Spain and been guest chef in Catalunya and Andalusia, including cooking the Primera Cena del Jerez at the invitation of the Casa del Vino in Jerez.

Yet when asked by a Spanish magazine to write an article about what most appealed to me in Spanish food and wine, I could not think of a single thing to write about; a hundred things, even a thousand things, but how could I choose one single aspect among all that excites me about Spain and Spanish gastronomy?

But in fact, most of what I like best in Spanish food and wine is to be found in my favourite part of Spain, the ‘sherry triangle’.

Just as sherry is probably the world’s most underrated wine, so sherry vinegar is one of the least known, yet one of the very best condiments. In my kitchen I have a bottle of sherry vinegar; a faded hand-typed label, with a family crest, states ‘El vinagre viejo. 100 years old sherry vinegar. Acidity 17.5°. Bottled 3.3.94’.

It was given to me by Miguel Valdespino, of the famous Jerezano family. When I open it to add to a gazpacho or a sabayon, to a marinade for spare ribs, to brush on a piece of fish before breading and frying or to ‘educate’ a bottle of white wine vinegar, I can never resist putting a dab on my tongue of this dark, viscous liquid.

The sensation transports me from my kitchen to Jerez and its vivid smells, sounds, sights and tastes, nowhere more in evidence than at the Feria del Caballo, the annual horse fair held in early May; the sounds of harnesses jingling, sevillanas and stamping, the clack of a fan, the taste of chilled Tio Pepe being consumed like water, its cool bite a temporary refreshment, the blaze of colour in the flamenco dresses so elegantly worn by women of all ages, the haughty bearing of their cavaliers, the warm greetings of friends as one moves from caseta to caseta; the aroma of puros for sale outside the bull-ring.

And then there are the quieter moments: a long, lazy lunch with friends, breakfast on the terrace at the Hotel Jerez. This remains one of the nicest hotels in the world, and many of the staff are old friends of mine ever since I cooked the ‘sherry dinner’ at the Casa del Vino.

Chef Luis Gonzalez and his brigade helped me to produce a dinner designed to show the different types of sherry as perfect partners for British food. Sherry vinegar also played its part, in the sauce I served with the marinated salmon; honey, fresh mint, olive oil, a pinch or roasted cumin seeds and sherry vinegar.

As I use the vinegar, I remember being in what looks like a school room, figures hunched over desks are concentrating on the paper in front of them; but surely not a school room, for on each desk are four slender glasses, with a centimetre or two of golden brown liquid in the bottom.

Swirling, sniffing, dipping in pieces of bread and tasting, we are, in December 1988, at the first-ever tasting of sherry vinegars to be held in the offices of the regulatory council of the wines of Jerez.

• Wine producers, and jerezanos are no different, are frankly shy about admitting to producing vinegar. My argument to them had always been that one can only make good wine vinegar if one can make good wine and that there would, indeed, be a market for such a superb product.

However, for decades the butt of sherry vinegar was tucked away in a corner, hidden from the curious eyes of visiting wine and food writers. But I usually found it and whenever I asked, I was told “Oh, that’s just the family’s reserve”. Hmmmm.

Fast forward to a most remarkable morning on a recent visit to Jerez; we had often driven past the wrought iron gates of Bodegas Paez Morilla, but it was only when a jerezano friend told me about Don Antonio Paez Morilla, known locally as El Rey de Vinagre, and then furnished an introduction that I was able to see sherry vinegar in all its glory.

No longer tucked away, here was a fine solera of maturing vinegar, stacked in oak barrels. Some made from oloroso sherry, some from muscatel, some from amontillado; some young, some venerably aged.

Starting his working life as a cooper when he was a young boy, Don Antonio later went on to buy up stocks of those ‘family reserves’ of sherry vinegar with which he has now created an extraordinary range of quality vinegars.

Imagine my pleasure at seeing, as we were leaving the airport in Jerez, that alongside the cheeses, jamones and olive oil, a fine range of sherry vinegars was for sale in the tienda.

It has taken a long time for sherry vinegar to emerge from the hidden corners of dark bodegas but the wait was worth it. It is as indispensable in my kitchen as Gozo sea salt.

Sherry vinegar in the kitchen

With an acidity level in the region of 7.5°, sherry vinegar is ideal for using in dark pickles and chutneys. It is used by the jerezanos a little like the Italians use aceto balsamico, with strawberries, with ice-cream and in sweet and savoury sauces.

One of my favourite dishes is prawns on toast or in pastry cases, topped with mayonnaise flavoured with sherry vinegar and to which whisked egg white is folded in, and then flashed under grill. You can take canned white asparagus and prepare it on toast in the same way.

Sherry vinegar is used in classic Andalusian gazpacho, in ajo blanco, the white version made with almonds and garlic and in gazpacho de melon. You can also use it for pickling meat and fish en escabeche.

A classic dish of the region is rinones al Jerez: kidneys are fried in a heavy pan in a little olive oil or butter, then the pan deglazed with sherry vinegar as well as sherry; chicken or duck liver can be cooked in the same way.

Sherry vinegar ‘balsam’ or glaze is also being made commercially in Spain. Until it reaches your local supermarket’s shelves you can make your own by reducing sherry vinegar with sugar to make a dark, syrupy glaze which makes an excellent garnish and condiment for salads and grills, not to mention barbecues.