Salud to the real thing

Emperador Distillers Inc. looks forward to the last quarter of every year—the so-called “ber” months —with unabashed glee, as it is the best sales period in its annual sales calendar, thanks in part to the entrenched habit of many Filipino households to include a bottle of Fundador in the holiday celebrations.

That Filipinos are assured of authentic Fundador that proudly carries the trademark Brandy de Jerez is due mainly to the tireless and meticulous work of the Consejo Regulador del Brandy de Jerez, the sole institution responsible for certifying the quality of brandies belonging to the denomination “Brandy de Jerez.”

Brandy de Jerez is to this municipality in the south of Spain what champagne is to the province of Champagne in the northeast of France.

Both territories are very sensitive when it comes to the use of the brands carefully nurtured over decades. In Jerez, spirit producers have to be deemed worthy to carry the brands Brandy de Jerez, Sherry de  Jerez and even vinegar de Jerez in every product that they send out to the market.

This is why in the Philippines in the late 1990s, Bodegas Fundador, the oldest and largest brandy producer of Jerez, now owned by the listed company chaired by tycoon Andrew L. Tan, worked together with Philippine authorities to crack down hard on the proliferation of Fundador products that were not actually produced in Jerez and yet carried the seals signifying the denomination of origin.

The situation became so bad at one point that over half of the Fundador products in the Philippines—the single largest export market of Bodegas Fundador—were fake.

But today, with greater appreciation for and knowledge of intellectual property, all products in the Philippines are authentic and are assured of the quality promise that the hard-fought seals make to the consumer.

One of these products is Fundador Exclusivo, a Solera Gran Reserva, being the Top Premium Expression on the Fundador range.

It is aged in selected Oloroso Sherry Casks through the traditional system in Jerez called “soleras and criaderas.”

It was in 1889 when Fundador Exclusivo was born in the Bodega El Molino, the oldest and foundational cellar in Bodegas Fundador.

Fundador Exclusivo is a matured Brandy de Jerez with an intense dark gold color.

Consejo Regulador, composed of representatives from the bodegas, is intent on maintaining the stature of Brandy de Perez, ensuring that the brand and what it represents are fiercely and jealously protected.

There are similar alcoholic beverages that come from outside the region of Jerez, Spain’s brandy capital, but they can not carry the terms sherry or brandy de jerez, and are instead often referred to as fortified wine.

Similarly, “champagne” produced outside the town of Champagne can only be referred to as sparkling wine.

Jerez can lay claim to these denominations of origin by virtue of its place in the long history of brandy and sherry making in Spain.

According to Manuel Saldana, general manager of the Consejo Regulador, Jerez has a wine and brandy making tradition that spans over 3,000 years, starting with the coming of the Phoenicians (from present-day Lebanon), who introduced vine cultivation in the region 1,000 years before Christ.

And it is no accident that brandy and wine production took root in Jerez.

Jerez is part of the southernmost wine region in continental Europe, enjoying 300 days of sunshine a year, where summers can be very hot with temperatures going up to 40 degrees Celsius and winters are short and mild, with temperatures dropping to about four degrees.

But what is vital to the region is its albariza soil. White and chalky, the soil captures the humidity and keeps it in the ground, giving the plants the perfect environment in which to thrive. And then the region enjoys that “balance” between the levante and poniente winds, which determine the quality of the crop.

The people who inhabited the region, from the Phoenicians to the Romans and the Arabs, continued the wine-making tradition, with the Arabs introducing the art of distillation, giving birth to the brandy tradition, which spread to other countries as colonization progressed.

The Consejo is given the vital task of ensuring that the tradition continues in these modern times, unspoiled by copycats and pretenders to the Brandy de Jerez throne.

And those who purchase Fundador products in the Philippines, under the guidance of Emperador Distillers Inc., especially in this Christmas season, can be assured that what they are enjoying is the real thing.

Cheers to that.