My sherry amor – a love affair with Spanish wine

By the time the light fades over the Guadalquivir marshes, Sanlúcar de Barrameda smells of salt and warm stone. Step into Hidalgo’s bodega and the air closes in, dense with yeast, oak and the faint sweetness of fermentation. It’s a grounding smell, familiar, almost domestic. Rows of casks rise in perfect geometry, the youngest wines stacked above the oldest in the solera system, where each feeds the next in a measured exchange. Not ageing, but calibration. A veil of flor settles above…