other varieties. Amontillado sherry, or simply
Amontillado, belongs to the latter class, the other description produced
from the dry wine being sherry, properly so called, that which passes in
this country generally by that name. These two wines, although differing
from each other in the peculiarities of colour, smell, and flavour, are
produced from the same grape, and in precisely a similar manner; indeed, it
frequently happens that of two or more _botas_, or large casks, filled with
the same _mout_ (wort or sweet wine), and subjected to the same
manipulation, the one becomes Amontillado, and the other natural sherry.
This mysterious transformation takes place ordinarily during the first, but
sometimes even during the second year, and in a manner that has hitherto
baffled the attempts of the most attentive observer to discover. Natural
sherry has a peculiar aromatic flavour, somewhat richer than that of its
brother, the Amontillado, and partakes of three different colours, viz.
pale or straw, golden, and deep golden, the latter being the description
denominated by us brown sherry. The Amontillado is of a straw colour only,
more or less shaded according to the age it possesses. Its flavour is drier
and more delicate than that of natural sherry, recalling in a slight degree
the taste of nuts and almonds. This wine, beings produced by a phenomenon
which takes place it is imagined during the fermentation, is naturally less
abundant than the other description of sherry, and there are years in which
it is produced in very small quantities, and sometimes even not at all; for
the same reason it is age for age dearer also. The word "Amontillado"
signifies like or similar to Montilla, _i. e._ the wine manufactured at
that place. Montilla is situated in Upper Andalusia, in the neighbourhood
of Cordouc, and produces an excellent description of wine, but which, from
the want of roads and communication with the principal commercial towns of
Spain, is almost entirely unknown.

The two sweet wines of Xeres are the "Paxarite," or "Pedro Ximenes," and
the "Muscatel." The first-named is made from a species of grape called
"Pedro Ximenes," sweeter in quality than that which produces the dry
sherry, and which, moreover, is exposed much longer to the action of the
sun previous to the process of manufacture; its condition when subjected to
the action of the pressers resembling very nearly that of a raisin.
Fermentation is in this case much mo