Sherry is Dying, Pass the Port

Extinction is such a final word that it seems strange to use in terms of an entire category of wine, but along with gorillas, the Sumatran elephant and the white rhino we may soon have to add the name Sherry.

That epitome of genteel elegance, the go-to wine for both maiden aunts and hairy faced hipster sommeliers would appear to be in the final waiting room, as it were, its loving, but exhausted family sitting by the bed wondering if this will finally the moment when a beloved but long-ailing family member breathes its last. "It would be a mercy," they mutter to each other, unable to watch another rattling breath. "It's a kindness in the long run."

I can almost hear chorus of disagreement as I type this. "Sherry has never been in better health," you cry. "London and New York are packed with Sherry bars!" Well, those cities might be, but as a category Sherry is no longer even on its knees, instead on its way to becoming a rewrite of Monty Python's Dead Parrot sketch: "He's expired and gone to meet his maker! He's a stiff! Bereft of life, he rests in peace!"

The first inkling I had of this was last week when I was researching an article on Port. Checking on keyword searches for the three main fortified wine styles, I realized that 99 percent of searches for Sherry in the past year were for Sherry-cask-matured whiskeys rather than the venerable produce of southern Spain.

So I decided to look more closely at Sherry, especially in relation to its "rivals" Port and Madeira, and the results weren't promising. To put matters in some kind of perspective, we've had more than twice as many searches for Penfolds Grange this year than we've had for all the Sherries we list and, for the first time ever, Madeira searches have surpassed Sherry searches.

Five years ago, Beltran Domecq, president of Sherry's Consejo Regulador, said things were changing for Sherry and new developments such as en rama styles were offering hope that a new audience could be found for the wines of Jerez. He also said it was imperative to "de-seasonalize" Sherry and make it a year-round drink. It hasn't worked. Sherry remains a stubbornly seasonal wine, according to our data, with interest peaking during the winter months.

And while interest in the en rama version of the González Byass global favorite Tio Pepe has outstripped searches for the traditional version to be the second most-searched for Sherry, it comes second behind Club Royal Original Pale Cream, a wine that hasn't been listed on Wine-Searcher since February, and exactly the style of Sherry that en rama was supposed to replace, as young, hip consumers supplanted their grandparents as Sherry drinkers.

Looking back across the past five years, Sherry's decline has been well signposted. Continuous decline in interest has been matched by apathy in the marketplace. Huge brands have been moribund; Tio Pepe's average price has remained unchanged since 2014, while the number of offers has also remained constant. The only real change has been the decline in its search rank, moving relentlessly lower each year. At least it's doing better than the fino sector generally, which has seen interest collapse by a half in five years. The en rama version of Tio Pepe has improved since 2014, but it has hardly set the global market alight.

What must be galling for producers, however, is watching the resurgence in interest that Port is enjoying. Across the past five years it has notched up solid growth, with searches growing by 34.5 percent across that period. That rate of increase is slowing somewhat so far this year, but it is still growing at least. The most brutal illustration of Port's dominance is that the most searched-for Port thus far in 2019 has had 46 times as many searches as the most popular Sherry. Ouch.

What might be even more galling for Sherry-lovers is the relative rise of Madeira, which has traditionally been the smallest of the three Iberian fortified wines, in terms of production and in terms of interest. That has changed this year, however, with Madeira searches outstripping Sherry searches so far by 7 percent.

It's interesting to put the three wines in perspective, taking into account the levels of interest (number of searches) and the level of availability (number of offers). Of the combined searches for the three wines, Port accounts for 85 percent of the total, Madeira 8 percent and Sherry 7 percent. However, of the total offers, Port accounts for 74.5 percent of all wines, while Sherry makes up 18.5 percent of the total. That leaves 7 percent of the wines for Madeira.

That suggests that interest in Port and Madeira is ahead of supply, while there is a vast lake of Sherry metaphorically sloshing around in retailers' warehouses, trying to attract the waning attention of a diminishing pool of interested customers.

Of course, Sherry isn't going to simply disappear; the deathbed scene described above is a little bit of hyperbole for dramatic effect. But it doesn't point to the sort of rosy future that Sherry heads have been bruiting for the past few years either. The truth, as ever, will lie somewhere in between as winemakers keep producing the same old wines for an ever-decreasing audience.

Sommeliers and "wine educators" might still trumpet Sherry's charms to the wider world, but it will fall on deaf ears. The real interest in the wines might well be limited to whisk(e)y distillers who need the barrels to age their own product, but the general public's interest will gradually shrink.

And that great Sherry revival? Stick a fork in it, it's done.