In 1492 the Jews were expelled from Spain. It was one of the most controversial and momentous episodes in all of European history, and one that historians are still arguing about. But it didn’t affect Jerez much. Thirty aranzadas of sherry vineyards were confiscated from the Jews and delivered to the Royal Convent of Santo Domingo. In Spain, as in other places, religious houses were among the pioneers of viticulture. The great monastery of La Cartuja, or Charterhouse, was founded on the outskirts of Jerez in 1475, and in 1658 it was reported to have flourishing vineyards that produced excellent wine. The street called Bodegas formerly led to the cellars of the old monastery of Veracruz.
Before long, crowds of foreigners arrived to fill the void left by the expulsion of the Jews. They were, for the most part, Genoese, Bretons and English. Some acted as money changers, while the Genoese took over the tanneries and formed their own trading guild. The English were mostly merchants, and many of them were interested in wine. From the earliest times, the merchants who traded in Jerez exported their wares from the docks at El Portal, on the Guadalete River, a mile or two from the town.
This river port continued in use until the arrival of the railway four hundred years later, and goods were lowered into the sea by barge. There is still a street called Barqueros, where some of the barge captains had their offices, but the arrangement was never entirely satisfactory: the docks always fell into disrepair and the river silted up.
The Jerez archives contain many early references to shipping wine abroad. As early as 1485 there is evidence of shipments of wine from Puerto de Santa María to ‘Plemma, which is in the kingdom of England’, presumably Plymouth. By that date the harvest was already subject to strict control, and the biggest crime of all was watering down the wine on the tables of the bars.
The size of a cigarette butt, for example, was fixed at thirty arrobas, exactly as it is today. Coopers were among the first of the recognized guilds, and in 1482 it was stipulated that wine casks should be made of good wood that was not contaminated with any kind of fish or oil. Any wooden cask that could damage the wine was to be burned and fined.
At the end of the 15th century, the greatest effervescence of all reached Andalusia: nine months after the conquest of Granada, Columbus discovered America. All his efforts, his intrigues with the Church and the monarchy, his triumphs and disappointments, his elaborate travel preparations, the travels themselves, all centered on Andalusia.
From Andalusia he gathered his forces, and many of his men came from the towns of Jerez. He set out from Sanlúcar de Barrameda on his third voyage to discover the island of Trinidad in 1498, and Sanlúcar soon established itself as an important port for the new American trade; It was the port from which Pizarro set sail twenty-five years later on his way to the conquest of Peru. Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, discoverer of Florida, was the son of a viticulturist from Jerez.
The ships were well provisioned and good supplies of wine and drink coasters were essential. Large quantities of sherry were purchased and it is safe to say that sherry was the first wine to enter the US. It has been drunk there ever since. Not even the most fanatical prohibitionists could avoid it; they only managed to reduce the stock of good wine and replace it with poisonous alembic liqueurs that blinded men.
The sherry trade with England was well established in the 16th century, but it originated much earlier, at the time of Muslim rule. It may have started during the reign of King Edward III, whose maritime policy encouraged such trade, and there is a record of importation of Spanish wine in 1340.
In those days, wine was quite rightly regarded as a necessity, and the pursuit of it provided one of the greatest incentives for the development of merchant shipping, which, in turn, ultimately led to Britain’s immense maritime power. However, one of the earliest trades with southern Spain was in salt, prepared in the sea marshes near Cádiz, and it has been suggested that early merchants trading in the salt and fruit trade imported the local wines as a weight.