I WOKE up this morning without a headache, and I fully admit to imbibing large amounts of `fino' sherry yesterday - all in the line of professional duty and investigation. My lack of headache, however, is causing soul searching among the sherry producers of Jerez, where controversy rages over the way it was achieved - for one of them, Jose Estevez, has introduced Tio Mateo, the fino which doesn't give you a hangover.
He claims he has discovered a method of removing practically all histamines from his `fino' wines, and, he says it is histamines which cause the thumping heads. Although they are reluctant to talk about it openly, the other sherry producers believe it amounts to unfair competition and could bring discredit to their own products.
Jose Estevez, or Pepe as he is known by his friends, is a colourful 66 year old selfmade millionaire who proudly boasts of his humble background, an outsider in Jerez's world of sherry barons. He began his working life in a local bottling factory, and wondered at the large quantity of flawed bottles which had to be smashed because of the poorquality sand used in their manufiictnre. His discovery in 1962 of a rich silica sand deposit in Arcos de la Frontera, 25 kms from Jerez, was to be his turning point from relative poverty to millionaire status.
Over the past 20 years the Estevez family, now five sons and two daughters, took controlling interest in two small, ailing sherry companies and he began his crusade to build them up and find a better and more healthy wine.
The Estevez bodegas on the out skirts of Jerez are the most modern in town, with towering stainless steel casks used in the first stages of production light years away from the traditional dusty cellars of the past. Maribel Estevez, the biologist and oenologist daughter, is in charge of the technical operations. She controls the yeast which floats on the surface of the sherry and helps it to ferment. "The yeast is like the placenta protecting the unborn baby," she says. "And by maintaining scrupulous hygienic conditions in the bodega we can protect the yeast and eliminate almost all histamines from the wine."
Histamines are a natural product present in many foodstuffs such as cheese, spinach, yoghurt or strawberries. Red wines contain even higher quantities than dry sherry, while solids take far longer to be absorbed into the bloodstream than liquids and therefore have fewer aftereffects. The histamine content of sherry ranges between 0.62 milligrams to 11.46 milligrams a litre depending on the brand: the same tests, carried out by the Centre for Scientific Studies in Madrid, detected virtually no trace of the substance in Tio Mateo sherry.
Dr Francisco Bravo, a chemist and oenologist at CSIS and a specialist in histamines, welcomes the Estevez method as an important development. "If there is no histamine in wine, you can be sure the wine has been carefully made and under hygenic conditions. People with a sensitivity to histamines begin to feel its effects at 3 milligrames per litre." Chemical neurologist Dr Miguel Lizaso, whose findings on histamines will be published in the Lancet shortly, says: "We believe as much as 20 per cent of the population has symptoms of migraine due to a greater or lesser extent to a histamine imbalance."
The European Histamine Research Society held its annual congress in Seville in May and a visit to Pepe Estevez's bodega was on their programme. "Wine with less histamine is definitely healthier," says Dr Felix Florza, the society's president and a research chemist who has worked with the Estevez family for the past 12 years. He believes 4 to 7 per cent of the population has difficulty eliminating histamines from their bodies.
More than two years ago, Estevez applied to the powerful cherry Council for authorisation to include the histamine free claim on his bottles, but came up against a brick wall because all sherry has to meet the same standards.
"It is forbidden by law to inform the consumer about histamines in wine," says Luis Breton, director of the Sherry Exporters Federation. "It would confuse the consumer and is contrary to EU regulation 822/87 on wine production." Some of his colleagues believe the council probably erred when it refused permission. "We should have let him write practically no histamines on his labels and let the customers make up their own minds," says one of them, who preferred not to be named. "It has created a controversy and given Estevez even more publicity."