Links between drinks

During the late summer, we’ve been fortunate to have travelled by train through Portugal and Spain, including the former’s fabulous port and wine producing Douro Valley, and the latter’s sherry triangle in Andalucia.

The Portugal part of the trip allowed us to visit both Taylor’s port wine lodge in Vila Nova de Gaia, across the Douro river from the main city of Oporto, and Quinta Daniel high up the Douro Valley, to see where this relatively small wine producer has its home.  Both visits naturally included educational and very enjoyable tasting opportunities!

In Andalucia, we had the opportunity to visit Jerez de la Frontera, and the Lustau Bodega, where they specialise in the production of mainly sherry and vermouth.  Again, the visit included a tour of the maturing vaults and a tasting of various sherries and vermouths.

During the tour, a surprising fact became apparent.   Lustau’s guide pointed out a section of their oak casks which are being aged in Spain, specifically for export to whisky distilleries in Scotland, in this case Highland Park.  These are not, in fact, old sherry casks, but the ageing can still take up to 15 years, before the casks are ready to be shipped to Scotland to hold our whisky, in the process lending it a distinctive additional flavour, as the water of life goes through its own maturation process.

So we uncovered an unexpected connection to whisky and so to Scotland, which illustrated the previously unknown (to us) links between these global drinks industries.