Sherry

Sherry is not just a sweet wine, my friend — it has many faces, from bone-dry to syrupy, and each one earns its place at the table. Pour a little into a glass and look at it, smell it before you taste it: pale gold can mean a crisp, dry style, but deep amber doesn't always mean sweet — some of the driest Sherries are the darkest in the glass. Colour tells you less than your nose does. Give it a good sniff: dry styles are sharp and savoury, sweeter ones smell of raisins and toffee, and almost all of them carry that warm, nutty note underneath. If it smells flat, like nothing at all, put the bottle back.

Some people say Sherry is only for sipping after dinner, a drink for old men in armchairs. No! In the kitchen it is worth its weight in gold. Cooks who know it reach for it the way they reach for salt — a splash in a mushroom sauce, in a reduction for duck, and the pan itself tells you it was the right move: the smell turns rounder, nuttier, more inviting.

That misconception leads to a sad mistake: cooks grab cheap sweet wine instead, thinking any amber bottle will do, and the sauce ends up cloying and flat. Keep a real bottle of Sherry in the kitchen, not just on the bar shelf — and choose the style to match the dish.