Sherry may not be the first thing you reach for when thinking about what to drink with a meal, but it is incredibly food-friendly, with styles running from very dry to very sweet and a range of flavours and structural elements meaning it can match well with even typically hard to pair ingredients.
To prove the point the Sherry council organises Copa Jerez, a biennial food and sherry pairing competition which looks for a chef and sommelier team to wow judges with an innovative and creative three-course sherry-paired menu. And this year the UK final took place on Monday 30th September at Mary’s est. 2024, the new restaurant from Jason Atherton’s The Social Company, with the winning pair heading to Jerez to compete in the international Copa Jerez competition in Spring 2025.
The three teams who made it to this year’s final were private chef Lily Stock and sommelier Yuri Humphreys from Raffles London at the OWO; The Foraging Chef, Stephen James Thompson, and Cong Cong Bo from Amphora Cambridge; and Silo’s Will Stoyle and Apricity’s Zoé Donadio.
Judges for the competition were headed up by Chair Tamlyn Currin, who’s Jancis Robinson’s trusted food pairing expert, was joined by Roxane Dupuy, Executive Sommelier for The Social Company, and multi award-winning Head Chef Spencer Metzger. The judges were looking for excellent food and sherry pairings but also commented on how clear it was that each chef and sommelier pair had worked so closely as a team.
As the competition got underway, chef Lily Stock and Sommelier Yuri Humphreys presented a starter of panise with Thai peppercorn sauce, charred broccoli, pickled mustard seeds and spring onion alongside Lustau’s Papirusa Manzanilla, followed by a main of lamb saddle with smoked aubergine whipped sheep’s curd, fresh radish, courgette tartlet, chicken skin seaweed crumb and a sherry and pine nut lamb jus paired with Valdespino’s Solera 1842 VOS Oloroso, before a dessert of dark chocolate baked mousse with sherry ganache, lime milk sorbet, honey tuile and raspberry served with Bodegas Tradición’s VOS Pedro Ximénez.
The Foraging Chef’s Stephen James Thompson and Amphora Cambridge’s Cong Cong Bo started their presentation with a pairing of BBQ mackerel in pork belly fat, pineappleweed pickled potato, wakame and unripe Mirabelle plum tartare sauce paired with Bodegas Alonso’s Velo Flor Manzanilla, before a main of ox cheek braised in oloroso with beetroot porridge, liver jam and sweet woodruff hollandaise served with Valdespino ‘Don Gonzalo’ VOS Oloroso. They finished with a fermented birch polypore molasses meringue pie, burnt wheat vinegar and nutritional yeast snow matched with Moscatel Emilín Solera Familiar from Bodegas Lustau.
Tamlyn noted the amount of thought and creativity as well as flavour understanding that had gone into all of the menus was impressive: “the quality of the cooking was superb; I could have happily finished every single one of those dishes!” She commented that “every team had a standout pairing, every team had done some brave things, and their bravery paid off.”
But the dishes that championed on the day were from the winning team of Will Stoyle and Zoé Donadio who showed “knowledge, integrity and passion.”
Their starter of sea bass, foraged coastal herbs, turnip, ricotta and miso was paired with Bodegas Sánchez Ayala’s ‘Gabriela’ Manzanilla. Judge Spencer Metzger was blown away by the main course Will and Zoé presented with Valdespino’s ‘Viejo CP’ VOS Palo Cortado. The smoked pumpkin with amontillado cream, furikake and pumpkin skin marmalade was “smoked, sweet, and then a nice furikake on top which was…a little bit spicy, it was fantastic, the cream…with the sherry was unreal, and then he took the pumpkin skin, pressure cooked it, pickled it, confited it, a really minimal dish but so much complexity of flavour and with the sherry it just worked an absolute treat.”
This was the first competition Will and Zoé had entered together, and they wanted to translate the ethos of their restaurants into the food they presented. The pair said that the food didn’t feel like a risk, for them it is very normal to serve plant-based and vegan food because that is how they work every day.
Will disclosed that while they were always sure about the pumpkin dish, they weren’t always as certain about the sherry pairing, but when they did a run through they were really wowed by the match with the Palo Cortado. The dish itself was designed for the winter season last year, although the variety of pumpkin Will originally wanted to use was still two weeks from being in season for this competition. That sort of dedication to seasonal produce was clear in the presentations Will and Zoé gave to the judges, with their passion shining through. Will remarked that “I think it makes it extra special…[that] I know every single person who produced everything from the plate to the food which lies on top of it, I’ve met, I’ve been to the farm, the fishermen – I know Julian from The Sea, The Sea who caught that sea bass last Thursday…”
Zoé’s presentations showed the care that had been taken with the sherry pairings, going down to a molecular level to ensure flavour matching. The sherry Zoé paired with the dessert is one she really loves. The ‘Cruz del Mar’ Cream from Bodegas César Florido is slightly unusual in that the Oloroso is sweetened with 25% Moscatel rather than PX. This was served with beetroot amazake sorbet, holy basil oil and raspberry chong granita. Zoé said taking part in Copa Jerez has made her think more about pairing sherries with different dishes. “Previously I’ve only really paired sherries with dessert but both the manzanilla pairing and [using] plant-based cuisine…this has opened up a new range of options.”
All the finalists were praised by the judges for an incredibly high level of competition and congratulated Will and Zoé, who we look forward to supporting in Jerez next year.
If reading about these mouthwatering food pairings has inspired you, perhaps next time you’re thinking about what to drink with a meal, you will reach for a sherry!
