The first time I remember having sherry, Hubby and I were staying in a boutique hotel in the North Beach part of San Francisco. Every afternoon at 6:00 p.m. they would serve sherry. I don’t know what kind it was, only that it tasted like alcoholic maple syrup. It pretty much turned me into a port drinker on the rare occasion I do have fortified wine.
So when I had the opportunity to read some stories by Edgar Allen Poe in preparation for a recent panel at Anachrocon, I revisited The Cask of Amontillado. It wasn’t on the list, but I saw the title in the Table of Contents and was like, “Oh, that’s a kind of wine.” Yeah, the oenophilic implications of the story didn’t register in my twelve-year-old brain the first time I read it. I re-read the story, and my first thought was, “Why is he getting that excited over a barrel of sherry?”
My second thought was, “Holy crap, they’re drinking some good stuff on the way in.”
So let’s look at The Cask of Amontillado from an oenophile perspective.
First, what is amontillado, and why was the doomed and ironically named Fortunato so excited about it?
When I started researching this article, I came to realize that sherry is a lot more complicated than I originally thought. So complicated, in fact, it requires a flow chart to explain. According to Sherrynotes.com, Amontillado is made from dried palomino grapes. Then it’s fermented with a layer of yeast on top, and then the yeast is removed or killed with another fortification, and the wine is aged without it, which exposes it to the air. This entire fermentation process takes several years, particularly since older vintages are blended into newer ones. Due to the fact that the grapes were grown and harvested in different years, sherry ends up being non-vintage. It’s also fortified to 16-20.5%, so it will pack a punch, and you get to use your cute little cordial glasses.
Amontillado – made in Mantilla – is considered to be one of the finer types of sherry, so that’s why Fortunato was so excited. Also, he spends the entire story inebriated, so we know he likes his alcohol, and a “pipe” is a lot – an entire barrel. Since Amontillado is fortified, it wouldn’t take much to push poor Fortunato over the edge. He’d probably have preferred a massive puking hangover to what happened to him, though.
Side note – here’s an article on Amontillado and a tasting of 18 of them in celebration of an entire book on the subject. I wonder if the book ends with someone being walled up alive.
Second, did you notice what the characters drank on the way through the cellar?
I admit I’m not a connoisseur of French wines, but I do recognize some terms. Poor Fortunato has a cough, so Montresor offers him a swig from a bottle of Medoc, which he knocks the neck off of. I’m guessing that’s kind of like sabering. Medoc is part of the Bordeaux wine region of France, which is renowned for its reds to the point that people will pay for wine from future vintages. I wonder if Poe was poking fun at wine connoisseurs considering how respected the region is. The next wine, a De Grâve(s) – also a Bordeaux – fares no better with Fortunato swigging it down “at a breath.”
I had to laugh at the comment by the author of this article on the wines that appear in Poe’s work that “a wine lover may feel that Fortunato deserves the fate which overtakes him just because of his gross overindulgence in his insulting disregard for noble wines.”
If you’re looking for something fun from which to drink your non-fancy wines, alcohol, or coffee on that Monday you’re particularly dreading, check out this fun Cask of Amontillado mug from Horror in Clay (detail pictured left – go to the site for the fun, well-researched entirety of it). I’m kicking myself for not picking one up at Anachrocon. The artist, Jonathan Chaffin, was on the Poe panel with me, and we had the same idea as to what was wrong with Madeline Usher. Great minds and all.
Okay, now I’m curious about Amontillado sherry. Does anyone have a suggestion for a reasonably priced one that’s widely distributed and decent? I really would like the chance to use my cute little cordial glasses, at least until I can get my own mug.
Happy drinking!
-C