Fever-Tree founder is on a mission to boost the sherry scene

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For Robert Rolls, as for any fine wine merchant, the initials DRC stand for the world-famous Domaine de la Romanée-Conti in Burgundy. But it is more likely that his younger brother, Charles, associates the initials with the Democratic Republic of the Congo. As a young man, he contracted malaria while in the countryside and, through a winding path, he made a fortune from the experience. It was in the Democratic Republic of the Congo that he ended up sourcing quinine for Fever-Tree, the premium tonic water brand he created with publicist Tim Warrillow in 2004.

Rolls resigned from an executive position at Fever-Tree in 2014 (“it’s too big now for an entrepreneur like me”) and has been looking for something to do ever since.

Unable to spot such a lucrative gap in the market as premium tonic, he thought about what else he liked to drink. Unlike his brother, he gets headaches from red wine too often, but he loves fine sherry, the pale, dry version. After Fever-Tree, Robert Rolls poked around several times in Jerez, the Andalusian sherry capital, with a view to making and marketing his own, but was discouraged when he discovered that “everyone was depressed about the sherry industry” there. Even Fino was completely out of fashion, just as gin had been when Rolls first got involved with Plymouth Gin in 1997.

He was also wary of the sweet, dark connotations of the word sherry. “Everyone thinks cream, or possibly amontillado,” he said. Rolls now says he’s glad he waited before deciding to focus on a Fino-like table wine that’s not as potent as sherry. The result is a dry wine from sherry vineyards that has the yeasty flavor of Fino but is only about 12 percent alcohol, rather than boosting it by adding alcohol to the 15 percent defined as Fino by sherry authorities.

Thus was born Sotovelo, literally “beneath the veil,” a reference to the layer of flor yeast responsible for the distinctive flavor of fine sherry. He recruited as his country man another businessman, Thomas de Wangen, who imported wine to China for quite some time. De Wangen had represented the González Byass sherry company in China and spent time in Jerez, where he fell in love with the region.

Three years ago, he and his Colombian wife, Lorna, bought 16 hectares of sherry vineyards and a run-down winery on the outskirts of the city and are currently painstakingly restoring them. It is these Palomino Fino strains that supply the raw material for Sotovelo, along with a much smaller amount of Fino sherry for Rolls.

I went to see the company with Sophia Bergqvist, a friend of Rolls from business school, who has become her family’s port and Douro table wine producer. fifth of the rose, in a successful business. It was fascinating to hear them compare the fortunes of the world’s two most famous fortified wine regions (although Rolls doesn’t like the word “fortified” almost as much as he likes calling Fino sherry).

Already in the 1990s, port makers in the Douro Valley of northern Portugal saw declining interest in port, so they began a serious diversification into table wine. Why didn’t something similar happen in Jerez? Bergqvist asks. Why has there been so little response from producers to the drop in sherry sales?

The Douro Valley and the port city of Porto at its mouth are now important tourist destinations. Bergqvist herself runs a thriving hotel and restaurant in Quinta de la Rosa. The rolling limestone hills on the outskirts of the three Jerez cities of Jerez, Sanlúcar de Barrameda and El Puerto de Santa María may not be as striking as the steep Duero Valley. Jerez is a beautiful and atmospheric Moorish gem. However, it receives a small fraction of Porto’s tourist traffic.

As I wrote last November, a group of small producers has emerged in the Sherry region that make table wine from grapes that were previously destined for sherry, and many of them are very good. Sotovelo would qualify, although I felt that Rolls, having proven market dominance, is eager to present its wine independently and not as a member of a group.

Another of Rolls’ characteristics, according to Bergqvist, is impatience. Perhaps as a result of this, Sotovelo’s 2022 vintage, which was the first, was bottled in May 2023 after only eight months under flower.

I suspect it may take a little more time to make a truly distinctive wine. Fortunately, the 2023 vintage is still maturing under flor in old Galician chestnut barrels in the recovered winery next to the vineyard.

The Sotovelo vineyard is right next to the first sherry vines of another newcomer, Peter Sisseck, whose most famous wine is Pingus in Ribera del Duero. Rolls, Bergqvist, de Wangen and I spent a healthy morning in the historic Jerez winery where Sisseck’s fine wines are maturing. The difference in pace and spirit was notable.

The winery is owned by sherry great Carlos del Río González-Gordon, father-in-law of Peter Sisseck’s daughter. On a patio adorned with flowers, we tasted multiple mature fine wines from Sisseck’s second vineyard, purchased three years ago (Viña Corrales from the first is already released). González-Gordon is patiently waiting for an agreement to be reached on when this second wine will be ready to be bottled. “In this business, finances can’t motivate you,” he told us. “It’s all about quality.”

As for Rolls, who is still determined to make some Fino and successfully launch his Sotovelo table wine, he says he still has “a mountain to climb,” but believes that “Fino is a great drink and people some One day you will realize it.” ”. Just don’t call it sherry.

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