Sherry Bodega & Cádiz

Jerez gave sherry its name — the word is the English attempt at saying it. An hour further south lies Cádiz, the oldest continuously inhabited city in Western Europe.

We drive south in the morning, out of Seville and into the vineyards. The soil around Jerez is called albariza and is almost white with chalk — it reflects the sunlight and holds the winter moisture right through the summer, which is the reason the wine here is unlike any other.

The bodega comes first. Cathedral-like halls, casks stacked three high, the light kept deliberately low. The method is called criaderas y soleras: the wine is moved gradually between rows of casks, youngest to oldest, and a cask is never emptied completely — so every bottle holds a little of each year going back, in some bodegas as far as the 1800s. You taste your way through the range, from bone-dry fino through nutty amontillado and dark oloroso to Pedro Ximénez, so sweet it is almost syrup. Most guests arrive believing sherry is a dessert wine and leave knowing better.

Jerez lives off three things — sherry, horses and flamenco — and all three are real here rather than staged for visitors. The Real Escuela Andaluza del Arte Ecuestre is one of the world's four classical riding schools, and its show is called how the Andalusian horses dance. It runs on set days only, so we check the calendar when we plan your date; when there is no show we visit the stables and watch the training instead.

Then Cádiz, and the day changes character completely. The old town sits on a peninsula so narrow you can see the sea in three directions. The Phoenicians founded it around 1100 BC and called it Gadir; the Romans called it Gades. You feel it as soon as you step out — the air is saltier, the light sharper, the people more outgoing than inland. We walk the medieval Pópulo quarter, La Viña where the fishermen lived, and Santa María, where the flamenco comes from, all within twenty minutes of each other. Climb the cathedral's Poniente tower and the whole peninsula lies below you with the golden dome in the foreground and the Atlantic all around.

Lunch belongs in Cádiz, not Jerez. The central market is one of the best in Andalucía, the fish comes in the same morning, and the stalls around the hall will fry whatever you point at — cazón en adobo, tortillitas de camarones, puntillitas. Eaten from a paper cone, standing up, which is how it is meant to be.

The day is private and built around you. If you would rather spend it all on wine and visit two bodegas, or skip Jerez and give Cádiz the whole day, we plan it that way.