A look inside the Osbourne bodega in Cádiz

By Greg Linch

Wine companies often tout the distinct taste of their product when trying to attract customers, but extensive background on how that taste is created is little known. That is where the process of refinement and aging is crucial.

Osborne is one company that offers a behind-the-scenes tour, which gives participants a look at how they make sherry at their Bodega de Mora in El Puerto de Santa María, Cádiz.

To start, a short film offers the participants a brief yet comprehensive look at the company and facility, as well an overview of how the sherries are made. All of this provides good background for the actual tour.

The tour takes the participants through several of ?temples,? the storage facilities that are naturally temperature- and humidity-controlled, with doors and open windows shaded to prevent the sun from warming the vast space.

These rooms house hundreds of barrels of aging wine to become sherry. The barrels are made of American oak, the best kind of wood to age the wine, which let the wine breath so the smell in the temple is overpowering.

At Osborne, the quality is the most important aspect of their product. They take several steps to ensure that the wine is as pure as possible and aged in the optimal condition.

For instance, they floor is watered every few days, or as needed, in the summer to cool the room. Similarly, Alvaro soil is also used to down to cool the room.

Regarding purity, the walls have not been painted since the original construction in the mid-1800?s and no chemical products are used so that the purity of the aging environment is perserved.

Since they don?t even clean the walls, fungus has built-up over the years, which helps to maintain the proper humidity levels. Along the same lines, spider webs on the barrels are not cleaned so that spiders eat the insects in the temples.

Even though the environment is strictly controlled, approximately five percent of the sherry evaporates each year from the barrels.

Each barrel can hold 500 liters of wine ? the equivalent of 400 bottles ? and is laid horizontal.

The barrels are stacked in three layers, one for each age. Solera is the oldest at the bottom, the first criadera is the middle-aged wine and second criadera is the youngest at the bottom.

From these, three types of sherry may be produced. Fino, the fine sherry, is aged for five years. If left longer, the flor, a yeast-like layer at the top of the sherry, disappears.

With the disappearance of the flor, amontillado may be made by adding more alcohol. Finally, the oldest sherry is oloroso, which is made by adding yet more alcohol.

Throughout this process, the barrels are never moved ? only the sherry. This is one reason why each barrel will last approximately 90 years, though with repairs every few years.
When the sherry is moved it is mixed so the exact age of each bottle is impossible to determine. Thus, the age of Osborne sherry is never listed on the bottle. The mixing also ensures a consistent flavor every year for each type of sherry.

The Osborne Company, which is still family-run, was founded by English trader Thomas Osborne Mann in 1772. The current company?s core business areas include Osborne wines; spirits; Iberian pork hams; water, fruit juice and soft drinks; and restaurants.

In addition to the Bodega de Mora, there are two other facilities: the Bodega de Tiro, which produces sherry, and another winery. These three locations constitute El Triangulo, or ?the triangle.?
For more information, please visit www.osborne.es. Tours are available at the Bodega de Mora and Bodega de Tiro locations in Cádiz.

 

Designer offers look inside Spanish magazine
By Greg Linch

Simplicity is the key in designing the cover of Metropoli, the weekly magazine supplement in the Spanish daily newspaper El Mundo, according to Rodrigo Sanchez.

Sanchez is the assistant art director for Metropoli and recently hosted a group of five University of Miami students on a study abroad trip in Spain with Professor Randy Stano.
The students, all from the UM School of Communication, spent three days at El Mundo listening to presentations from Sanchez, cartoonist Ricardo Martinez, info graphic editor Juan Cruz and others.

Sanchez, a friend of Stano, arranged for the students? activities at the paper, taking them on a personal tour during their first visit to the daily newspaper?s headquarters. He led them around many of the paper?s departments, introducing them to various designers, editors and other staffers.

Each day, Sanchez showed the students slide shows that he featured during a three-day design conference at the UM School of Communication?s annual Communication Week in late March 2006.

The PowerPoint presentations offered students a look at a variety of past Metropoli covers, all in effort to demonstrate how simplicity can be extremely effective designing a magazine cover seen across Spain.

Similarly, Sanchez proved that there are infinite design possibilities and, with the freedom to do so, creativity has no bounds.

?I was very surprised by how laid back Rodrigo was,? Carolina Correa, a public relations major, said. ?His work is very impressive and it was incredible to see how such a creative mind works.?

Niccole Pertierra, also a public relations major, agreed in her assessment of the experience.

?Rodrigo and Ricardo?s professional, yet laid back demeanor made visiting El Mundo very enjoyable,? Pertierra said. ?I was very impressed by their talent.?

One notable aspect of Sanchez?s covers is that, unlike other magazines, he hardly utilizes photographs or images. As is such, his designs are usually all original graphics. In some instances, he only uses text to convey a certain message?one way in which he exemplified simplicity.

Sanchez?s freedom of creativity in designing Metropoli covers has diminished slightly with respect to the masthead, according to Stano, but he still has more freedom than any other magazine would most likely give him.

Extending this freedom to his audience on the second day, Sanchez gave the students two ideas after Stano said that one of their six projects would be to design a Metropoli cover. The students had until the next morning to complete the two covers, one for the movie Poseidon and the other for Titanic.

Using InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator and the Internet, students toiled until the early hours of the morning to complete the Poseidon covers. Weary from scant sleep, the students entered the classroom somewhat unsure of their work.
Sanchez and Stano critiqued the covers, which counted as one of two Stano required students to have done during their 18 days in Madrid.

After reviewing the students? work, Sanchez drew two covers on the blackboard. For the Poseidon cover, he flipped the masthead, a parallel to the boat that flips in the movie, and wrote the word ?Poseidon? under it. Along the same lines, for Titanic Sanchez placed the masthead at the bottom of the page to reflect how the boat sank, writing ?Titanic? above it.

These very simple designs left the students a bit stupefied, with Ricardo Herrera, an advertising major, commenting how he had a similar idea for Poseidon cover.
?I was thinking of doing something very similar,? Herrera said. ?I decided in the end not to because I thought it was too simple. Guess not.?

Prior to leaving Madrid, the students made the necessary changes to their covers for the final versions, which they presented to Stano.